


Finding You

by Koryandr



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Grieving, Missing Moments, Missing Scene, Season 2, Season 3, Suicidal Thoughts, background all canon relationships, canon character death, no beta's we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:40:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 29
Words: 70,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23404642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Koryandr/pseuds/Koryandr
Summary: A Captain Swan Character StudyAn examination of how Killian and Emma fell in love, separately follows their internal thoughts and motivations through Seasons 2 and 3. Canon-Compliant with a lot of missing scenes.
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones & Emma Swan, Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan
Comments: 75
Kudos: 68





	1. Killian - Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> At times I found canon a bit...lacking when it comes to character depth. No fault of the actors, the writing can just leave a bit to be desired at times. I wanted to write fic for these two, but first I needed to understand them. So I sat down and started doing a train of thought examination for Killian, which then turned me into wanting to explore Emma's side of things as well, and eventually it led me to going through two entire seasons of this show trying to sort these two out. 
> 
> Character Studies are super fun and it's a great way to get inside the head of your characters...most of them just aren't 70k lmao. 
> 
> There are some scenes that felt they meant more to Emma, so they ended up in her POV but not Killian's and vice versa. Additionally, there are some new scenes in Emma's POV that aren't in Killian's and vice versa. On the flip side, there are scenes that are in both because I feel both of them interpret the scene very differently. The two narratives were written independently of one another, so if you only want to read Killian's or Emma's, you can do that as well, so POV never changes within the chapter. I wrote these in blocks only broken up by half-season and in separate Killian and Emma docs, so chapter length greatly varies.
> 
> This is canon-compliant with a lot of added scenes to pad out character development and relationship building that got squished in the show. I'm not re-writing the entire show, in fact there are entire blocks of episodes that don't even make it into this. This is about how they feel and think about each other. It's about the development of their relationship. There are a lot of things I'm sure Emma thinks about, like her relationship with Regina and Henry and her parents, that don't have any bearing on the Captain Swan relationship, so they don't make it into this fic. However, Emma and Killian's past romantic relationships have a big impact on their relationship with one-another, so there is a fair bit about Milah and Neal/Bae in this.
> 
> I'm not trying to rewrite canon verbatim, that would be dreadfully boring, I'm just trying to add a layer to it, so the fic does assume you've seen the show. Even if I really liked a scene, if I felt canon said everything there was to say about it, I left it alone. I'm more concerned with how their relationship developed.
> 
> Just because one of them thinks something, doesn't necessarily mean it's true. And we all know these are two people who can say a million things with just a few words. 
> 
> TW: mild suicidal thoughts from Killian in a few chapters, nothing overt. Just general mature adult themes. 
> 
> **TL;DR:** Canon-compliant with missing moments, split POV of seasons 2 and 3.
> 
>   
> 

_A man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets._

After three centuries, you would think you would have everything figured out. And he did. Think he had it all figured out, that is. He knows how to get what he wants, knows the ways to quirk his mouth, to raise an eyebrow, look up from under his lashes. He knows when to threaten and when to harm, when a gentle hand is needed versus a firm one. 

He knows royals and he knows beggars, knows thieves and gentlemen. He knows the look of someone running from something, and how different it is from the look of someone running towards it. With an ever rotating crew, he knows the look of someone seeking purpose, someone lost adrift in the sea who needed to lay anchor again, and one that still thought they’d find their place on the water. 

He’s a weathered man. He’s set up trade lines, he’s stalked royal vessels, he’s created and amassed fortunes several lifetimes over. He can chart a course better than any sailing master, can hear the whispers of the Jolly Roger, can feel her needs. The enchantment in her sings to him, thrills under his fingers, calls for him when he’s away. There is no line where Captain begins and she ends, they’re interwoven, of the same mind at times, her magic a pinprick in the back of his neck when he’s on land. 

He’s flown her under a red flag, under a black one, under clear sails. The crew respects him, the ship respects him, and nobody has ordered a vote of leadership in decades. He has logs and logs of payments split amongst the crew, hundreds of books of their affairs. He knows every grain of that ship, every thread of her sails, every knot of wood along the walls of his cabin. The Jolly Roger and Captain Hook are one in the same.

But one thing still evades him. The thing that gets him out of bed in the morning, the thing that gets him back on the water, the wind in his sails that keeps him going forward. Always forward. 

The Crocodile. 

The moment that demon stepped foot on the deck Jolly screamed for him, the wood groaned in response to the foul presence, waned and wept as Milah’s blood stained the deck, as his own mixed in. She mourned with Killian, he could feel it in her masts, in the gentle rock of her afterwards. She raged with him as well, calling for the red sail after Milah’s death came upon them. Recoiling when the Lost Boys boarded her. 

He waited. He’s done so much of it in his life, but he lay in wait for the day when he could best the Crocodile. When he could avenge the woman that died in his arms, the lost boy that he housed in Neverland. He daydreamed about the life draining from his demonic eyes, about the way his heart would crumble in Killian’s hand like _hers_ did. His cutlas thirsted for his blood, the Jolly called for recompense. 

Milah was everything. She was commanding and strong, she did not want to be whisked away, did not want to run. She wanted to see and live, he saw the sea song in her eyes, the thirst for open air and hard work. She was ruthless, absorbed information like a sponge, put up with no nonsense from the men aboard, and did her share of the work. She learned the rigging, navigated with the sextant, swabbed the deck when it called for it. 

He observed so much of Liam in her. The confident set of her shoulders, the height of her jaw, her _honor_ . But she was more than that. She was...light. She would draw in his quarters, she would whisper in the night with him over rum of how she missed Baelfire, she would tell him stories of the lad, his first words, the first time she laid eyes on her boy. She shone with such passion that Killian felt breathless in her presence and could only bask in the _love_ he felt for her.

He felt so lucky to be on the receiving end of her love as well. Love that made his chest tighten at night, that had tears in his eyes as she curled into his side in the cold. He hadn’t felt any since Liam, since he had perished right there in his arms. But Milah brought light back to his life. She strung up drawings along his cabin, he taught her to write so she could help keep the books for them. She would write letters to her boy and stash them in a chest where she thought he would not find them. They would lay in bed at night, and he would trace the lines of her hands, the newly formed calluses there and fantasize with her about having Baelfire here, about bringing the lad aboard and sailing away, showing him the world. She would curl into his side and whisper promises of a future into his neck that he didn’t know he was desperate for. 

He didn’t know when he fell in love with her, scarcely knew what it meant to love another selflessly. Liam had loved him, and he had loved Liam fiercely, but to love someone not bound to you by family or blood. To choose day in and day out to be with someone was so new. It made him lighter, made the sun shine brighter on them, the sea glisten. With her he finally understood what it meant to live for something, to have something that made you want to experience a new day.

Which is why he was prepared to die for her. Entirely willing to lay his life at the Crocodile’s feet if it meant her safety. They would elect a new Captain, the Jolly would sing for another, but _he_ would do this for _her._ He would show her how much he loved her, prove his love was real. And then, in an instant of object horror, he stood helplessly as the monster with rotting skin and demon eyes held her heart in his hand and crushed it. He watched the light fade from her eyes and felt the sea rage for him: the salt was sharper, the sun more oppressive, wind whipped around him. Life surged with his rage and then, as they buried her at sea and the pain in his arm worsened, it was like life drained from the world once more. 

He’d avenged his brother best he could, sought recompense from as many royal ships as they could, pillaged and pilfered enough jewels and gold that he could have bought himself and his brother from their servitude a hundred times over. His brother’s death was a tragedy partly born of his own hubris. But Milah? She did nothing to deserve her fate. She was ripped from the world cruelly by what remained of a man she once loved. Her life was torn from her for nothing more than choosing to leave, choosing to be happy with another. She was punished for not loving that monster. It was cruel, it was not just. He dreamt of that scaly skinned demon for a century, plotted and planned to skin him alive and hang him from the bowsprit as a warning to the unjust. 

Milah found what she wanted in life and she fought for it until her dying breath. She was so strong, only to be killed by one so weak they sought power from an ancient magic. Milah wasn’t taken from anyone, she forged her own path in life and fought for it. She was braver than the Crocodile could ever understand, stronger than he would ever be, no matter what magic flowed in his veins. He was a coward, and Milah was anything but. 

_(“I love you” whispered warm against his skin.)_

But he’s a smart man. He’s not foolish enough to seek out the demon without a plan. So he plans, and plots, and waits. With no love left to live for, he forged a purpose from his revenge, from the concentrate of hate and hurt and anger in his heart. He would get up every day and think ‘ _for her’._

When did he stop believing it actually was for her?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any questions or want to chat, feel free to Inbox or message me at [Koryandr](https://koryandr.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. 
> 
> I'd love to answer any questions about OUAT, Captain Swan, or the fic. Or, y'know, if you just wanna chat in this weird weird time we're living in. :)
> 
> If not, comments are also always appreciated. <3


	2. Killian - Tallahassee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both Killian and Emma's Tallahassee chapters posted today.

Swan is an enigma. 

Cora had told him of the Land Without Magic, how the daughter of Snow White had returned and was traveling with another princess. He remembers Snow White. Sweet little princess rough hewn by the forest, one with the woods like he the sea. He certainly remembers the never ending war waged between her and the Evil Queen, which acerbated the long-standing face-off between the Queen and her mother. He tired of them. 

Their magic smelled rotten like sulfur and felt like chalk on his skin. But he played along, ever the dutiful pawn in their games, biding his time until they gave him what he wanted. One was only a pawn if they didn’t know they were being used, afterall. He was well aware that his relationship with mother and daughter wasn’t exactly symbiotic, but self preservation has many forms. He would get to the crocodile one way or another. 

But actually meeting the band of princesses out in the encampment...Killian started re-evaluating. See, he’s a gambler at heart, he’s strategic. And for whatever their motivation, one look at those women and he knew they would stop at nothing to achieve their means. As for Cora? Well he wasn’t willing to play another 28 year waiting game at her side.

Snow, predictably, had her defenses up first, but the pretty little royal and her knight were more easily swayed by a sad pretty face. But it was the blonde, Emma Swan that struck him. Quite literally almost. But the longer he looked at her the more he realized she felt familiar. Not that he’d ever met her, she was just a babe when she was last in these lands, but he looked at her and couldn’t quite figure out if she was running _from_ or _to._

It was that ferocity, the ruthlessness, the blade held to the skin of his neck. She had something to lose in this fight. But it was more than just her friends. She was Snow’s daughter, and yet she continually turned from Snow: a shoulder between them, a pinched brow in her expression and the buzz of a perpetual flight response just beneath the surface of her gaze. She was like a caged animal. A wounded one at that.

Swan is quiet, but not naturally so. It’s a deafening kind of silence that projects the volume of her thoughts as they climb the beanstalk. 

“I love a challenge.” He tells her with a grin in a failed attempt to get any sort of reaction from her. He knows how to do this, smile, grin, say pretty words and bat his eyes. They’re tactics he knows well, whether it’s his own nervous tick or used to put others at ease and get what he wants from them. Any reaction tells him more than no reaction, a scorn is just as informative as a flattered smile. 

Emma though, it’s not that she has no reaction. Quite the opposite in fact. In her attempt to keep others out, her walls are built up high and strong but shine like the sun on the sea. Walls that high are built on hurt and betrayal. She doesn’t seem easy to trust others. In fact it seems she’s been hurt so much she can’t let her own mother in. There’s echoes of the Lost Boy’s cries when he looks at her behavior with her mother and the guarded expression. The succinct interaction between them is doesn’t speak to a loss of trust, but a trust that was never there to begin with. Self preservation lingers just beneath her exterior. It lies in the dart of her eyes across the landscape, how she’s quick to look for the weakest point in their surroundings. She’s an open book...to him at least. He can see her pain clear as day, for it echoes some barren corner of his own soul.

And yet she fights. There’s _something_ she believes in. A lover? A Child? She fights for Snow, but that’s not what drives her. Henry. They had mentioned a ‘Henry.’ But no, it’s not the look of a woman in love, of one pleasing for their lover, but instead it’s a fierce protective emotion that raises the flesh on the back of his neck. He’s seen it before in distant, painful memories. 

“You need to get back to a child.” He muses, enjoying the thrill of watching her try to hide her surprise. For someone that boasts about being able to sort out a liar, she’s a dreadful one herself. 

See, Swan must not know that she wears her weakness around for all to see like that jacket of hers. And others likely can’t see what is obvious to his ancient eyes. But Killian? He wears his heart on his sleeve (literally in the sense of the tattoo along the inside of his wrist.) But you live long enough and you learn how to hide behind pretty smiles and vapid words so the world overlooks any weakness. You learn to hide it in plain sight. 

Swan is quick to throw his weakness in his face, ( _“He took more than your hand from you, didn't he? That's why you want to kill him.”_ ) but when he throws hers back ( _“For someone who’s never been in love, you’re quite perceptive, aren’t you?”_ ) there’s a new balance in their dynamic. They haven't exactly laid their cards on the table, but the poker face is stripped away. She found the heart on his sleeve and he let her in, and this time, when he prods at her own weak spot, she lets him in as well. 

It’s his fatal flaw really. 

He thinks he understands her then, after their moment of shared vulnerability. He expects trust forged in fire, honor amongst thieves. 

Then she cuffs him and he’s left to sit there and stew and he contemplates just where he went wrong. He did everything right. He always gave her the upper hand and he let her lead the charge. He was _honest,_ he helped her, he _let her in_ to gain her trust and yet…

“I can’t take a chance that I’m wrong about you.”

He practically lay himself bare and she still fucking left him up there. 

At least with the Crocodile he understood, for as disgustingly wrong as it was, he could understand the sort of rage that would cause you to hurt someone who hurt you first. But she _didn’t make sense._ He felt it, at some point she began to trust him. He felt that calling that he saw in Milah, that he saw in all of his crew as he took them aboard. The ever familiar ache of a wayward soul. 

There’s just something about loss that mars the soul, something about grief and pain that leaves you with open wounds. Wounds that are nothing more than a scar to most, but to those with matching ones it’s a beacon. Loss begets loss, grief calls for the grieving, and pain cries out for comfort. Like the lost boys in the night, pain has a way of reaching out for anyone that is listening, crying out for comfort it doesn’t know how to accept. He’s spent centuries listening to the cries of loss, of the lost. He knows that siren song well.

So when her pain called to his own, and she found his as well, why did she turn her back on it? That’s what makes the betrayal sting, it’s not that she didn’t trust him, it’s that she _chose_ not to. 

He feels like a child again, getting lashes for something the other cabin boys did, getting reprimanded by Liam for what he thought was the right thing. He trusted her, he bet on her and he was wrong. He weighed all of his options, he ran the numbers, he worked out the risk and...she was an outlier in his equation and he couldn’t see it until it was too late. 

He’s pissed. Pissed off she used him, pissed off he _let_ her use him. And he was pissed becaue he fucking indulged in her. It must be her. He just got lost in his attraction for her and that’s why he fucked up. He hated it even more that, sitting there hours later he still _wanted_ her. 

He didn’t just want her, he didn’t want soft and sweet, didn’t even want a quick fuck. He wanted to _unravel_ her. He wanted her scraping down his back, crying his name in pleasure. He wanted to break her down and know her inside and out. He’d rile her up, bring her to the brink until she _begged_ him for more, and then keep her begging. 

He knew the band of princesses were beautiful. But he’s been around for a century or two, he’s seen many beautiful women in his life. Milah was an exceptional beauty. The princess in her gown, her warrior, Swan and her mother were all beautiful, even more so for the fire in their eyes that he’s always loved in a woman. But there was just something about _Swan_. 

Maybe it was the trousers her and her mother wore that he found endlessly appealing or maybe it was the hair spun from gold or the kohl around her eyes. (He certainly enjoyed the tease of a necklace falling below her bodice.) But was more to it than that. She has these walls that she tries so hard to keep up, ones that echo his own. Her beauty isn’t marred by her loss, but it’s engraved in her being like a scar only visible if you know what to look for.

And she wanted him too. When they were away from the others and he bandaged her hand, bared his neck and stood prone before her it was palpable. Her breath was heavy, her eyes bore into his, her pulse jumped under his thumb on her wrist. 

He pulled every fucking trick in the book out for this woman and yet...and yet. 

Swan really screwed up his plans. 

Then he has to improvise. 

He doesn’t want to hurt the princess, doesn’t want to work with Cora, but Swan forced his hand, really. He wagers she won’t crush the heart, complete control over another being is one kind of power you don’t give up easily. 

“Hook, wait.” She has the audacity to _plead_ with him. “Please don’t do this. My son is in Storybrooke, he needs me.”

“Perhaps you should have considered that before you abandoned me on that beanstalk.” He stalks towards her, refusing to break eye contact. There’s none of that connection here, not in front of her mother, in front of Cora. She thinks she can stand before him hidden behind her walls and play him like a fool.

“You would’ve done the same.” 

“Actually, no.” He wishes he got more satisfaction at the way she shrinks back in surprise.

 _(“I'm pretty good at knowing when someone is lying to me.”_ )

He doesn’t want to hurt her, he didn’t want to separate her from her boy. But she crossed him first and turnabout is fair play, afterall. He’s a man that has chased a demon for centuries. So he knows that with the right motivation, she’ll find her way back to her boy. He really fucking tried, afterall. If she had just trusted him-

She’s dreadful with a sword, honestly. He could have left his blade sheathed and still beat her. She holds the damn thing like a hammer and clearly has never learned of a parry in her life. Her grip is laughable and as he disarms her easily, it almost feels like fighting a child, like any offensive maneuver on his part wouldn’t even be fair play. 

_It’s a broadsword, love. You only need one hand._

He’s got a backup plan now, he doesn’t need Cora anymore now that he has the water. Doesn’t need the compass or the ashes. If the water can reanimate the magic of the ash, it can reanimate the bean. Maybe he can help her after all...not that she deserves it. 

She’s _desperate_ . She lunges at him in an amateur move and he’s more bewildered than anything that she even tries it. She has to be smart enough to have _some_ sense of self preservation. He throws her easily and grabs her by the foot. Where is her head? He’s just toying with her at this point. But he’ll play along.

He’s always been soft for a woman in need. 

And he gets out of this guilt free. The royals will get to go home, he gets to find the Crocodile and Cora gets...whatever the hell it is that she wants. He snags the princess’ heart for her warrior and keeps Emma occupied. There’s really no losing for him in this fight. He’s got his bean afterall.

“I had no idea you had such a soft side.” She says, that desperate fire still in her eyes. 

“I don’t,” he brushes it off, “I just like a fair fight.”

“Good form.” he slides his blade down to meet hers at the cross guards. She tries to get a kick in and he snags her ankle with his hook, “Not good enough.”

Her sword is trapped between his hook and his guard and he takes the time to slide down slowly, leaning into a crouch over her. This fight is slowly coming to an end, might as well make the most of it. 

“Normally, I prefer to do other more enjoyable activities with a woman on her back.” He smirks down at her, “With my life on the line, you've left me no choice.” He lets himself relish in that flight response in her eyes. He’s backed her into a corner, he’s got her right where he wants her. He’s got total control. She can’t get out of this unless _he_ lets her.

“A bit of advice? When I jab you with my sword, you'll feel it.” He’s speaking lowly to her now, barely a foot distance between their faces. Her arm is pinned across her chest and his forearm is putting _just_ the right amount of pressure on her neck. He can feel her chest heaving beneath him, her heart pounding, it’s exhilarating. He gets distracted by it. “You might want to quit.”

“Why would I do that when I’m winning?” She asks, elbowing him in the ribs and pushing him off. He’s rather impressed when her fist catches his jaw. 

He watches from across the bank as Cora shoves her hand into Swan’s chest. He grips his sword, but doesn’t quite know what he’d do if...he didn’t count on this.

“Don’t you know? Love is weakness.” He hears Cora say. 

“No, it’s strength.” The pulse of magic from her is overwhelming. But it’s not like the magic he knows. It’s not _dirty_ , it doesn’t crawl up his neck and send shivers down his spine. It’s _warm_. It’s strong and it’s warm and it takes his breath away. Her magic is beautiful, just like the curve of her cheekbone and the fire in her eyes. Maybe that’s the missing piece, the one thing he wasn’t counting on. 

Her love is strong. 

When did his get so weak?

This was all for love, was it not? His love for Liam led him to this life, his love for Milah kept him going. Emma’s love is so strong and it feels like his own would crumble beneath his fingers if he pressed hard enough. The thought makes him itchy, makes him nervous. Is his love so weak that it’s waned? No. No. He’ll kill the Crocodile and then he will be with them. He won’t find them in the afterlife without proving himself, without showing them how strong he is. He’ll avenge their lives and then follow them to their graves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Koryandr](https://koryandr.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.


	3. Emma - Tallahassee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Both Killian and Emma's Tallahassee chapters posted today.

_People are gonna tell you who you are your whole life. You just gotta punch back and say, "No, this is who I am". You want people to look at you differently? Make them! You want to change things, you're gonna have to go out there and change them yourself, because there are no fairy godmothers in this world._

She can’t trust him. But every part of her tells her she can. It’s too easy. She knows him, men like him, men like Neal. Men that use smiles and charm to draw you in, gain your trust, use you up and then leave you.

She told herself she would never trust another person like him, that she could sniff a coward like him out from a mile away, that she wouldn’t let herself be _had_ like that again. She would never let a man use her like that again. Then she tried, she really fucking tried to let Graham in and he...now he just resides in laces wrapped around her wrist. 

She was better off before she began letting people in her heart. Men were good for sex, something fun and mutually beneficial. No sleepovers, no dates, no feelings. It was better that way. If you never let anybody in you can never get hurt. 

But there’s just something about him, something she can’t quite put her finger on and it fucking terrifies her. It has every instinct in her body on edge, has her questioning every feeling, every thought. Is he manipulating her? She had always been so good at detecting bullshit, but she never had any idea Neal was using her until he left her, what if this was the same thing? She had no warning signs with Neal, maybe her instincts go haywire with men like them. She can’t trust herself and he expects her to trust him?

Captain fucking Hook. Why can’t one of them just be like their movie counterpart? She could deal with a cranky asshole old Captain from the movie, but him? With his stupid smile and winks and the scruff along his jaw and his _eyes_. She pushes down every fucking instinct in her body around him, can’t trust her feelings, can’t trust her attraction, can’t trust her trepidation. 

And he reads her so easily, it’s genuinely disarming.He said she was like the Lost Boys. Was she? She remembers the Lost Boys from the cartoon and they were happy to be hanging out with Peter Pan on the island, weren’t they? _They just wanted a mother_. She bites it down. He doesn’t know her. 

She can read him too. She’s seen that personality since she was a pre-teen. The older kids weathered by the world, some of the boys and girls that turned to revealing clothes and an ever revolving door of significant others to chase the cold away. Boys that draped themselves in sarcasm and pick-up lines, girls that would lean forward with a low-cut shirt and a coy smile. The kids that were bright smiles and laughter during the day and cried themselves to sleep at night. Class clowns with a million friends at school that sat alone in their beds on the weekends. He does all of it. 

“No, I’ve never been in love.” She tells him. Part of her believes it. Because if she were really in love, Henry wouldn’t have happened. If she really loved someone, they would have loved her too. People that really love you don’t hurt you like that, right? If love that doesn’t hurt exists, she hasn’t found it. He just used her for...for what? Sex? A fall guy? What did he want from her? Why promise her the world then leave her like that?

Hook’s just a con-man. She knows how to deal with those. 

But then he’s not. 

He comes up with a smart plan, pulls her wrist to him with that damn hook, pours rum over her wound and uses his fucking mouth to pull that rag taut over her hand. Her fingers involuntarily scrape against his facial hair, his breath warm on the back of her hand and he looks up at her from under his lashes and her breath catches in her chest for just a beat. 

He keeps hold of her hand and she steps forward, suggesting the plan that will get her out of here alive and with an in-tact beanstalk to climb down. He may be a con-man but she was one too, they both know the weight of risk and reward. “You’d make a hell of a pirate.” He tells her like she wasn’t one. 

“Who’s Milah on the tattoo?” There it is. The weak spot. He chattered the whole way up, pretended not to have a care in the world when he’s got his heart literally tattooed on his sleeve for anyone to see. She watches his demeanor shutter, the flirty cocky pirate receding behind what she recognizes as something broken and hurt. 

“He took more than your hand from you, didn’t he? That’s why you want to kill him.” It clicks. The false bravado, the charm, the flirtatious smiles. This is the wound he’s been covering up and it’s still festering and infected. She finds the chink in his armor and it feels a lot like her own. It feels too much like her own. 

“For someone who’s never been in love you’re quite perceptive, aren’t you?” That hurt there, just beneath the surface is so familiar that her heart leaps into her throat. 

“Maybe I was once.”

He looks at her for a long minute, neither of them wanting to break eye contact. There’s something _there_ , some underlying energy between them that fucking terrifies her. She felt it when she first saw him, felt something _off_ about him, but it wasn’t until they were alone that it really hit her, the way part of her is intrinsically drawn to him. She feels like she knows him, knows the shine in his eyes and the hurt behind his facade. He’s so much like her. And that’s the problem. 

“Try something new, darling. It’s called trust.”

There may be some kindred spirits bullshit happening with them, two broken people recognizing abandonment when they see it, but she knows herself. She knows how strong self preservation runs in her own veins, how you learn to look out for yourself when you have no one else to do it for you. Last year, without anything to get home too, she knows what she would have done. She wouldn’t trust herself, so how can she trust him?

“I can’t take a chance that I’m wrong about you.”

She hears him shout after her all the way out of the castle and spends the entire walk to the beanstalk trying to rile herself up, to get angry at him. She was doing what was right, he would have turned on her eventually, she just got the drop on him first. 

But it’s a long climb down the beanstalk and with him out of earshot, without his smooth accent to commentate their descent, she begins to think. Honor among thieves didn’t turn out for her good last time, so she’s taking a page out of Neal’s book. Hook was going to turn on her eventually, all thieves do, so she decided to turn coat first, act before he could hurt her. He’ll just be chained up there for ten hours, inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, she just needed a head start. He would be fine, he’d be free soon. 

Is this how Neal justified his actions too?

Everything tells her she was right not to trust him, he went running back to Cora afterall, ripped Aurora’s heart from her chest. She tries to reason with him, to appeal to the connection they had before she shackled him to the wall, to that _understanding._

“You would have done the same.” 

“Actually, no.” He says and she stares, for just a moment, waiting for a tick from him. Waiting for the alarms in her head to go off, for the unease to begin but...but there’s none. He’s not lying. For that moment the false bravado is gone and she can hear the hurt in his voice. 

Then she watches the shutters go down on his expression, that hurt falling back behind pretty words aimed to hurt this time. “Something that was once magical, full of hope, possibility. Now look at it. Dried up, dead, useless. Much like you. The time for making deals is done, just as I’m done with you.”

He’s not all bad, she knows it, and afterall she did pull the first punch. But he saves Aurora’s heart, he doesn’t run her through on his sword several times when he could, he’s not trying to hurt her. He’s like an open flame in a windstorm and she’s never quite sure if the wind is going to shift and burn her. Back on the beanstalk she had wanted to trust him, then she hurt him and she wasn’t sure if he was going to lash back at her or help them. 

“I had no idea you had such a soft side.” She tells him. 

“I don’t.” He says, not looking at her, “I just like a fair fight.” He’s fast and sharp with his strikes, pushing her blade away, meeting her defense, catching her down to the guards. She’s never going to beat him in a sword fight, so when he’s close enough she raises her leg to kick out at him in a last-ditch effort.

“Good form,” He says, sweeping his hook down to catch around her ankle. “But not good enough.”

She flinches from the sword as she falls, but hoping she doesn't get a blade to the face, she throws it up in defense before the air even comes back to her lungs. That’s when he releases her ankle, but throws a foot next to her hip, and catches her balde between his guard and hook. 

“Normally,” He begins, sliding down her blade, “I prefer to do other more enjoyable activities with a woman on her back.” He’s barely a foot from her face, his damn pendants hanging down against her chest, her left hand pinned by her right shoulder. Up close his eyes are fucking ridiculous, and she ignores the betrayal of attraction that sweeps through her stomach. “With my life on the line, you've left me no choice.” 

“A bit of advice? When I jab you with my sword, you'll feel it.” His voice is low, just loud enough for the space between them, and it just sours any attraction she had into anger, the presumption that she would want him to do anything like pisses her off like nothing else. Same shit, different guy, the cocky attitude makes it hard to remember she felt bad about leaving him up there. She twists her right arm beneath her back, fingers digging through the sand for the hard lump pressed into her back. “You might want to quit.”

“Why would I do that when I’m winning?” Her knuckles feel bruised after connecting with his cheekbones, but he falls to the sand with a satisfying thud and she stands over him, drinking in the satisfaction for a moment too long.

She leaves him at that lake like she should have left Neal before any of this started, and plans to never see him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Koryandr](https://koryandr.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.


	4. Killian - The Outsider

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uploading both Killian and Emma's since these Season 2 chapters are so short.

She’s beautiful. Like Milah, but oh so young. 

That defiance he sees when he aims the pistol between her eyes is reminiscent of _her_. She’s strong willed, and brave like her too. He sees so much of Milah in her. Dark curls, eyes like the sea, and enough fire in her veins to warm a hearth through winter. But Belle, for all her books and knowledge, can’t see what is right in front of her face: A monster. 

Does she really think he can love her? That he’s even capable of that? He’s seen what happens to the people that monster loves and it only ever ends in heartbreak.

He feels for the girl, having blind faith in a man that she must not even know. She hasn’t seen the atrocities that have fallen at his hand, she didn’t see the heartbreak in Baelfire’s eyes, the betrayal in Milah’s as he held her still beating heart in his hand. She hasn’t felt the utter pain and devastation he has caused. 

He doesn’t want to hurt her. 

“Have you not hurt Rumple enough?” She asks him and every age old ember of rage deep within reignites.

“Oh? _I’ve_ hurt _him_?”

“You stole his wife.” 

“Tell me something, love.” He stalks towards her then, pressing into her space. “If a woman comes to you and begs you to take her away, is that theft?” He’s inches from her face, breathing hotly against the curve of her cheek, voice quiet and low. He would take her away too if she asked, to save her from that monster.

“Why would she leave him?” Belle asks. But she doesn’t rise to the bait, she doesn’t step back out of the shared space, she doesn’t run. She’s defiant. He admires that. 

“Because he was a coward.” He says, and he can see it now. Rumplestiltskin, peeling flesh and doublets made from hide, thrusting his hand into this girl’s chest and crushing her too-big heart like it is nothing. Milah saw him for the man he was, the coward he was, unwilling to fight for what he wanted, unwilling to fight for what he loved. And if he couldn’t fight for her, how did he expect Milah to fight for their family _._ “And because she loved me.”

“I should have burned this the moment I acquired it.” Hook steps back and riddles with the fabric resting on his bench. 

“Why didn’t you?” 

“Because _she_ made it.” And that he knows for a fact. He can see the familiar uneven slant of her stitching lines, crooked but still perfect to him, can feel her love for her son practically woven into the fabric. If he closes his eyes and presses his nose into the fabric, he imagines he could remember her scent too.

“I'm sorry she died, but vengeance? Vengeance won't bring her back.” Belle says, almost gentle in her plea, but she doesn't understand. How could she plead with him if she did?

“Died?” He scoffs, hand almost shaking around the pistol, “Like it was some kind of accident. Is that what he told you?” He crosses towards her again. 

“He well, yeah, he didn't say.”

“No, of course not. Of course he'd leave out the most important detail of her passing.” He leans back into her space, but she’s not afraid of him, he pulls on that want in her, the want to _know_ to _understand_. 

“And, uh what would that be?” She keeps her tone level, looking up at him. 

“He killed her.” Killian says, looking her dead in the eye. His jaw ticks with enough force that he grinds his teeth together. He brings the pistol up, and leans in, forgetting any niceties, forgetting his plan, forgetting the smart play. He leans in, almost pressing his forehead against hers, and draws the pistol down, pressing the cool metal to the exposed skin of her decolletage. He draws the pistol down the length of her bare collar to press against her sternum, where her heart beats frantically just below her skin. “He ripped out her heart, and he crushed it right in front of me.”

“No.” Now she begins to back up, shuffling towards the bench against the wall and shaking her head.

“Oh yes.”

“No!” She’s shaking her head, but he sees the pinprick of doubt there, growing steadily, blossoming under what she knows to be a truth but doesn’t want to accept.

“ _Yes_.” He presses her back until the backs of her thighs hit against the bench and her fingers grip the edge of the wood until she’s white-knuckled. He refuses to break the eye-contact, to give her any excuse to think he’s lying, but she doesn’t break eye contact either. He presses into her until there’s nothing but the ugly truth in the air between them, no room for deflection, for lies or avoidance.

“He will do anything,” He brings the end of the pistol up, pressing against the underside of her jaw. Her eyes stay on him as he presses her jaw back until she’s looking down at him as he breathes against her, “ _anything_ to hold on to his power.”

“Why do you think anyone who's ever gotten close to him has either run away or been killed?” He draws back, pacing down the length of the room, voice rising now that he’s stepped out of her space. He cocks the gun and levels it at her once more. “Now what makes you think you're any different?” 

“Tell me something, darling.” he asks, unable to break her steady gaze. Her eyes are moist with tears she is unwilling to shed, but her resolve stays much the same. “Why would you want to fight for a man like that?”

“Because I still see good in him.” She says, gaze steady. He almost shakes his head in disbelief that the Crocodile was able to twist and manipulate someone so strong and smart and beautiful into protecting his crooked blackened heart. And she means every word she’s saying, vehemently. “Because I believe he's changed. Because his heart is true.” 

She’s so intelligent, and yet so demonstrably wrong. 

“And yours? Yours is rotten.”

He doesn’t fight back when the Crocodile, looking every bit the coward he was when he knelt on this very deck all those years ago, tries to beat him. He’ll let her see the monster he really is, show her that he doesn’t care for her, doesn’t care for Baelfire or anything more than he cares for himself. 

The sad thing is, she truly believes there is good left in that carcass of what was once a man. 

He doesn’t want to hurt her, won’t kill her. She’s misguided, fooled into loving a monster incapable of returning her affection. But she’s complicit in his actions, and he’s not above using her to hurt the Crocodile. He’ll save her from that monster, she may not thank him for it later, but she will be free of him, free of his manipulations. He’ll save her from the fate that befell Milah. 

He didn’t expect to see Swan again really. He loses her a bit, between the pain, the metal carriage they put him in and all of the loud noises, he doesn’t remember much. But he wakes set in a bed with beeping boxes around him, his brace gone and a needle in the back of his hand. He refuses to admit any of the fear he feels at the unknown environment, but he doesn’t quite understand where he is. 

The healers in the metal carriage had told him they were taking him to a hospital, to be seen by a doctor for his injuries, but the artificial lighting is too bright and the pain too much and the noises too loud. He remembers lots of shouting, the healers shouting orders at one another, a loud voice booming in the room around him before it all went black.

His head feels clouded, like he’s a bottle deep in rum, but he knows he’s not drunk. This conversation with Swan would be going very differently if he were. The pain is greater than anticipated. More so than anything, it’s the absence of his brace that throws him. They seemed to have stripped him of everything else as well, but it feels odd to have the end of his arm wrapped in bandages by strangers and exposed for all to see. He doesn’t like it. 

He smiles through the pain and dodges her questions. She seems to be under the impression he expected to live through this encounter. Revenge is an end, not a beginning. He’s been waiting to end this for too long. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Koryandr](https://koryandr.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.


	5. Emma - The Outsider

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uploading both Killian and Emma's since these Season 2 chapters are so short.

She doesn’t have time to think about him before she sees him next, down in the rain near the town line, squirming in pain.

“Hey Beautiful,” He greets her with a blood stained face wrenched up in pain. He’s clutching at his ribcage, groaning and struggling to breathe properly. She rolls her eyes at the empty words, but kneels down, extending a hand to press between his ribs, under his pectoral. Through the leather she can feel the unnatural press of his ribs. 

“Here, I didn’t think you’d no-” His voice strangels off into a shout of pain and he grabs at her hand with both his right hand and hook, the cold metal wrapping around her wrist. She pulls her wrist from his grasp, sliding her hand out of the loop of his hook, the point catching on the fabric of her coat. 

“His one true love gone in an instant.” He’s struggling to sit up and shouting desperately at Gold through freezing rain. Hook raises himself to his knees, breath rattling as he does so, he seems ridiculously intent on a death wish here. “Just like Milah, Crocodile, when you took her from me.”

“But you took her first.” Gold says, coming up and kicking Hook in the face, knocking him back down to the wet gravel. 

“Gold, are you insane?!” She steps back as Gold throws himself forward over Hook, pressing his cane to the man’s throat and bearing his weight down on it. David and she both wrap their hands around Gold’s arms, trying to pry him off before he actually kills Hook. Hook’s breath sounds even more rattled as he collapses back on the ground, jaw thrown back with ragged gasps.

Murder is a lot of paperwork. Before they even strip him of the leather, Emma instructs the hospital staff to hide Hook somewhere secure, hopefully somewhere where Gold won’t strangle him to death. 

Belle gets settled and sedated and Gold seems to be less murderous than he was an hour ago, so Emma allows herself a moment to relax in one of the hospital waiting room chairs. She takes a breath. But before her muscles even have time to relax, the head nurse is coming up to her to ask her about Hook and to update her on his condition. 

“Why me?” She asks, rubbing exhaustion from her face.

“You’re the sheriff? You brought him in and I don’t think he has any family here for us to call.” The nurse looks just as tired so Emma accepts the answer and finds her way to his room. It’s odd to see him here. To see someone who only ever existed in the fever dream that was the Enchanted Forest strapped up to IV’s and a heart monitor, wrapped in a fluffy robe and blankets to warm up in the hospital bed. 

Without fear of his gaze or words, she lets herself look at him. He looks...normal? The blue of the hospital gown would look nice against his skin if his face weren’t smeared in blood. He looks like any guy she would pass in the streets in Boston, anyone that could work in a supermarket or on Wall Street. They’ve removed the earring, rings, and necklaces, and stripped of his leather buckles and brooches he’s just...normal, almost peaceful looking when he sleeps. His left wrist is bound tightly in gauze, and the hook never seemed odd to her, (she never really had time to question it) but the _absence_ of his hand is noticeable now with the brace removed. 

She grabs the pair of handcuffs from her back pocket and gingerly snaps him to the arm of the bed, ignoring the memory of unempathetic guards shackling her to exam beds and later the birthing table. She sits on the edge of the bed and observes him: the pull of his chest as he breathes steadily, the blood on his knuckles and his hairline outside of the stitches, the messy dripping smear of makeup around his eyes. 

It’s easier to admit he’s attractive when he’s not running his mouth...or standing in her way. 

_“Just like Milah.”_ He had said. Nudging his palm, she can see the tattoo bared on his wrist under the ID band (which ridiculously just read “Captain Hook.”) She wasn’t quite sure the connection between himself, this Milah, and Gold. But Gold took his hand, killed this Milah, and left Hook upset enough to risk his life trying to get revenge. Was Milah a girlfriend? Was she family, a sister? When the headache began to pulse in her skull, she realized she didn’t much care enough to think about it too hard. 

The desperate call though, the crack in his voice as he shouted at Gold, is all too familiar.

( _Shouting at her social worker, struggling in that court house with Cleo, clinging desperately to the only string of hope left in her life. If she could just find them, she could be happy_.)

Did he really love this woman so much that vengeance was the last shred of hope he had to cling to?

The more important questions came to her next. If he was here, that means he found another portal. Was Cora here as well? If so, what was her plan? There’s no way any of this was in line with Cora’s plans, it reeked too much of passion, of desperation. This was personal, and he was ready for Gold to kill him over it. Why?

He really dials up the deflection to one hundred once he comes around, but ultimately knows nothing of value for her, and seems to have been taken off of the chess board for the foreseeable future. 

“How did you get out of this?” She asks him later, shoving him not-so-gently down onto his hospital bed and depositing the plate of Jell-O back onto his food tray. He bites back a yelp, but it comes out in a groan anyway. 

“Not the first time I’ve been shackled, love.” He says, back ramrod straight as he tries to get comfortable. 

“It worked for me last time, didn’t it?” she counters, but almost regrets it when his expression darkens. 

“Shackles in your realm are rather weak.” He holds his wrist up again, jangling the open cuff in the air, “Solid Iron is much harder to break out of.”

“Whatever, just lay down before you hurt yourself more, you’re supposed to be resting.” Emma pushes his left shoulder back, and guides him to lay back in the hospital bed. 

“Thought you said I was a dead man anyway.” His protests are weak and eventually she gets him back in the bed. When he makes no move to adjust himself, just lays there with his eyes pinched shut against the pain, she rolls her eyes and begins to help him.

“Yea, well, it’d be inconvenient for me if you died right now, which is why you’re going to stay here so Gold doesn’t kill you.” She props his left arm up on a folded pillow like before, and adjusts his blanket to drape over his bare legs. She doesn’t linger on the splashes of ink and scars littering his legs. 

He shifts on the bed but breaks out into a groan.

“Let me get a nurse in here to hook your IV back up. I'll ask them to give you more morphine.” Emma begins to walk away, but his hand catches her wrist. 

“The lass is alright, yea?” He doesn’t look at her as he asks, but instead closes his eyes and lays back in bed.

“Belle?” 

He nods. 

“Gold already healed the wound.” Emma tugs her hand back and he lets go of her wrist. “She doesn’t remember anything but she’s upset and frightened. If you consider that ‘alright’ then yea, she’s alright.”

“Good.” Hook nods to himself, “She’s better off without him. Everyone is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Koryandr](https://koryandr.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.


	6. Killian - Tiny

They leave him in that _Hospital_ for days. He’s been alive for hundreds of years, he’s used to waiting, but he’s bored out of his mind. The nurses try to turn on the “tele-vision” moving picture box, but it’s loud and makes the ache in his head (‘concussion’ they had called it) even worse. One of the nurses who is charmed by his smile brings him some books to read. He’s halfway through the second one, when the royalty make their appearance. 

“Ah, Snow White, miss me so soon?” 

“Yes, Hook. Terribly.” Snow’s droll tone is so much like Emmas that he can’t help the smirk. 

“I knew you couldn’t resist.” He sits up in bed, ignoring the still-present pain in his abdomen. 

“Alright, Hook. We want to know about Cora.” A man steps up besides Snow, hands on his hips and a little gold emblem like Emma's shining along his belt. 

“And I would like the Crocodile skinned for a pair of boots, but alas.” He shrugs at the man and sets the book aside, folding the corner to keep his place. 

“Seriously, Hook.” Snow steps forward, coming to sit on the side of his bed. “If you tell us about Cora’s plans we’ll break you out of here.” 

“Ah,” Hook tilts his chin up with a grin and leans in a bit, “Now that is a deal I will take you up on, but there are other more fun ways for me to return the favor.” 

Snow narrows her eyes and smiles sardonically, but the man steps forward and grips him harshly by the shoulder.

“Watch it, _pirate_.” He hisses in Hook’s space. Snow puts a hand on the man’s chest, urging him back. 

“And who would you be? Her majesty’s lap dog?” Hook asks the man. 

“This is my husband, David.” Snow pats the man’s chest harshly, preventing him from stepping back up to the bedside. She extends her hand to him. “We get you out of here, you tell us about Cora. Deal?”

“Aye love, we’ve a deal.” He takes her hand, clearly meant for a handshake, “Shall we seal it with a kiss?” He pulls her hand gently towards his face but the lady slides it gently from his grip with an eye roll. 

Trusting the evil witch and her daughter was a mistake. But it’s just not enough to hurt the Crocodile in the way he has. He hurt him, he ripped his heart from him, but he still lives. He still gets to stalk this world while Milah’s soul has moved on, he gets to breathe where she doesn’t. 

It was so satisfying for the first night in the hospital, he effectively ripped his heart from him but...but it’s not enough. It doesn’t feel the way it’s supposed to. He’s supposed to feel better, feel at peace. So why does he still feel so empty?

 _“Is getting revenge against the Dark One worth all the time you've spent chasing it?”_ Someone asked him long ago. 

He begins to grow desperate to dispatch the Crocodile once and for all, to finally find the vengeance he seeks. With desperation, comes sloppiness, and he lets himself be bested by the damn witch and her daughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Koryandr](https://koryandr.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.
> 
> This one is incredibly short, just on the nature of how I had to split the chapters up. Don't' worry, we'll get way more into Killian here soon.


	7. Emma - Manhattan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is where we really start to get into the meat of things.

Neal hurts more than she expects it to. She imagined this confrontation so many times, she’s imagined beating the shit out of him, tears, anger, rage. She’s imagined him apologizing, him smiling like a villain, laughing in her face. She doesn’t expect that the moment her eyes meet his again her old wound, scarred over with hurt and suffering, is just ripped open and bleeds like it’s fresh. 

She wants to drag his ass back to Gold, to hurt him like he hurt her, but she can’t even bring herself to do that. He asks her, pleads with her, and she gives in. She covers for him, again, and it gets her in trouble _again_. 

He doesn’t get Henry. He doesn't have any claim to him, he gave up those rights when he left her to rot in jail for his crime. He gave up that right when, instead of him holding her hand and kissing her forehead, she’s left chained to a hospital bed and gripping the hand of some stranger while she gives birth. He doesn’t get to hurt Henry like that too. 

And to act hurt? To act like she hurt him by not telling him? Not like he left a phone number for her, he never found her and she waited for him, like an idiot, for two goddamn years in Tallahassee. He never made an effort to find her and he wants to chastise her for not telling him?

And god, of all the explanations she conjured, every conceivable notion of why he would have left her, his guilt is the worst one. He didn't leave her to save himself, he didn’t leave because he never loved her. He left because August, as a complete stranger, just told him to. He hurt her, left her to rot in jail because fucking Pinocchio told him to.

No. He doesn’t get to be upset with her. He doesn’t get to scoff at her pain. 

But god, that broken teenager she’s spent so long burying still just wants him back. He was the first time she ever really felt at home. Maybe that’s the worst thing. That beneath all of the hurt, part of her will always still love him. And she’ll always hate herself for it. 

“We’ve got to stop running into each other like this, Swan.” he says when she cuffs him to a radiator in the storage room. 

“And you’ve got to stop getting your ass kicked.” She smiles at him, waiting for a witty retort back. She gets none, so she looks at his face, still crouched next to him. “What? Not gonna hit on me this time?”

“Not when you’re upset like this. Too easy.” He says, lolling his head back against the wall. 

“What are you talking about?” She deflects.

“Something’s bothering you. I know I get you all hot and bothered, but you’re all tense and not in the fun way.” She should get irritated at his words, but she doesn’t have it in her at the moment. She sits back for a moment on the floor, regarding him.

“Why do you keep trying to kill him?” She asks, looking over at him and his partially open expression. He narrows his eyes. 

“He killed the woman I love, right in front of me. Crushed her heart in his hand, then cut mine off. He’s a monster.” Hook says all of it, point blank, like reading facts from a dictionary. She wonders how many times he’s said this mantra to himself. 

“I thought you got your revenge at the town line, took Belle away from him and all.” Emma asks. 

He looks away from her for a moment, brow pinched in concentration, like he’s looking for an answer. But when he looks back at her, he’s honest, she doesn’t hear a lie in his voice. “I thought it would be enough, but I don’t think I’ll be sated until he’s dead. When his body is cold, I will rest easy.”

“Hmm.” Emma hums, tilting her head. “And what about when that’s not enough? What will you do then?”

“It will be enough.” he looks away from her now, but the nerves on the back of her neck tingle at this, “It will be.”

“Sure it will.” Emma pats his shoulder before standing up and walking out of the storage room. “Word of advice? Vengeance isn’t gonna make you feel better. It never makes you feel as good as you want it to.” 

“You just going to leave me again, Swan?” He shouts after her.

“Pirate.” She says, in the same sarcastic tone he used with her when he broke out of his restraints in the hospital. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

“‘Till we meet again, love.” He chuckles, calling after her. 

On her way back up to Neal’s apartment, she almost envies this woman, Milah from the tattoo. It’s not right, the envy. That woman is dead, murdered in cold blood according to Hook, and he’s hurt innocent people in his quest for vengeance. Nevertheless, she wonders what it must be like to have someone love you enough to risk their life trying to get justice for you?

It hurts that Henry’s so upset with her and that Neal smirks at her like there’s some friendly secret between them. She wishes she could explain it to Henry, wishes he was old enough, broken enough to understand her hurt. She wants to shake him and plead with him to understand, understand that she was trying to protect him, that he didn’t need to know the pain Neal caused her. 

But that’s not fair to him. 

Mary Margaret said she was trying to protect herself, not Henry. It’s better for Henry that he doesn’t know about the past. It’s important that he’s able to know his father and have a fresh start with him. 

He doesn’t need Emma’s baggage. 

She just wishes there was someone she could explain it all to, vent to, get drunk with. But Mary Margaret is...her mother now. David is her father, they want her to be their daughter. They’re not her friends, Ruby’s not her friend, she's Mary Margaret’s. She half contemplates going to Graham’s grave, but there’s no solace in that. For being so surrounded by family, sometimes she still feels incredibly alone.

Him with Tamara. She doesn’t know how to process that one. 

There’s a part of her too large to ignore that feels betrayed by it. It’s been a decade, she doesn’t want to be with him again, but he left her, hurt her irrevocably, and then just...moved on? He’s with this woman who smiles at him the way _she_ used to, and he smiles back and suddenly Emma’s seventeen again and it fucking hurts. 

It hurts to see Neal with her son and to know that because of his actions neither of them got to watch Henry grow up. 

Henry is mad at her, Neal has moved on, Mary Margaret killed Cora. 

She’s struck by an odd fact when Neal defends Tamara and implies Emma is crazy and jealous for suspecting her. Neal never trusted her. Her problem was that she trusted a man that could never trust her, and after all this time, still doesn’t. He didn’t trust her plan for Tallahassee, he didn’t trust her to make her own choice between him and her family. He was too far broken by the world by the time he came into her life. There was never really any hope, was there?

“I wanted to look for you,” he says. Words she’s wanted to hear for a decade, words she’s dreamed of. “There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by that I don’t regret having left you.”

“I’m sorry, Emma, for everything.”

It feels so good to hear it. It soothes that raw wound, it’s everything she’s wanted. 

But it doesn’t fix anything. He can apologize a million times over, but it won’t change the past, it won’t take away the time she spent in jail, it won’t give her Henry’s childhood back. 

“Me too.” She says.

What is she sorry for? Sorry this is how it turned out? Sorry he left her? Sorry she trusted him? 

She’s not sure what she’s apologizing for, but it’s what she needs to stitch the wound back up. To heal. Then he’s ripped away from her again. 

It’s so quick, everything so sudden, and then she’s clinging onto him for dear life, screaming over the whirling sounds of the portal beneath him. And she’s seventeen again, except this time she gets to say goodbye. She always imagined what she would have said to him if she knew their last moments were their last, if she knew he was going to turn her in. 

She imagined it happy: she could tell him how much she loved him and then he would reconsider and he wouldn’t leave her. She imagined it sad: where she cried and clung to him and _begged_ him not to leave her, that she couldn’t bear it. There were so many more things she could have done to prevent him from leaving, she just didn’t love him enough, she wasn’t devoted enough, she didn’t tell him enough. She wasn’t enough, for years that was her only explanation. 

“I need you.” She tells him. Henry needs him, she needs him to be in Henry’s life. They’re words she wanted to scream and cry at him from her cell. She needed him when she had morning sickness. She needed him when she was anemic during the pregnancy. She needed him there, holding her hand when she gave birth. She needed him when the postpartum hit her and she forgot what sunshine looked like, when she cried herself to sleep at night after the birth, regretting not touching him, not holding him, not letting herself feed him just once. When she got out and had no place to go, she drove to Tallahassee looking for him, waiting for him, until she was able to teach herself that she _didn’t_ need him. She didn’t need anybody.

“I love you.” She says. She’s thought the words so many times over the years. She’s seventeen and bright eyed, she’s standing in court taking the punishment for his crimes. She’s fainting from the anemia, she’s pressing a hand to her stomach, hoping and praying she didn’t hurt the baby, and hating herself for hoping she lost it. When she got back in the bug, and let herself cry because how did it still smell like him? She loved him at the bottom of a bottle, in her worst moments. She will always love him, even if it hurts, even if it kills her. 

He lets go again.

And she lays on the broken boards of the building, just like she lay in her cell and when she was chained to that hospital bed, doing what she hates most: Crying. 

Neal Cassidy will always teach her the lesson she keeps forgetting. Everytime you let someone in you’re the one that gets hurt. Don’t trust anyone, never let them in, and you can’t get hurt. 

But this time, when she drags her ass back home, she has a home to go to. She wipes her face, and just _walks_.

“What happened?” David asks, and she realizes that she’s made it back to the loft. She doesn’t remember climbing the stairs, unlocking the door. “What is it?” He asks, and then she looks up. 

She has people to comfort her this time. But can she bring herself to seek that comfort out? Can she look at these people, who she’s all but refused to call her parents since the curse was broken, and seek comfort? Can she let herself be that selfish? Will they leave her too? Has she already made the mistake of letting them into her life? 

“Where’s Neal?” Mary Margaret asks.

They didn't raise her, they’re not responsible for her, legally she’s not theirs. Every time she’s felt like she belonged with someone it’s only ever led to heartbreak. They gave her life, but she’s never had a “mom” or “dad.” What is it like when you have parents? When there are people in your life that you can reach out to for comfort? She doesn't know how to do that. 

“He’s gone.” It doesn’t feel like she’s speaking the words as they come out of her mouth, “She killed him.”

Mary Margaret comes to her first, drawing Emma’s head to her neck, resting her hand on Emma’s back. Emma is frozen, but lets them move her, lets Mary Margaret rest her chin on her shoulder, lets David cup the back of her head and press his cheek to her hair. She lets them be her parents because she feels like a lost girl, and in her weakest moments this is all she’s ever wanted. They hold her until Emma’s knees feel weak and she stumbles in their grip. 

David wraps a steadying arm around her, and Mary Margaret pulls back, only to reach up and wipe the tears from Emma’s cheeks, expression drawn down in sympathy. She grips at David’s jacket to keep herself upright, and Mary Margaret excuses herself to grab Emma a glass of water and some medicine. 

David pulls her over to the stairs, gently lowering her to sit before joining her, angling his body towards hers and resting his broad hand against her back. She doesn’t know how to be held, but this, with his arm around her, she can work with. He rubs up and down her back, gentle motions as the world comes back to her in a dizzying way. 

“What am I gonna tell Henry?” 

David, her dad, pulls her to his chest and presses a kiss to her temple. She closes her eyes and lets herself have this, have his comfort. 

Mary Margaret sits her on the toilet seat, and wipes her face with a warm rag, clearing the makeup tracks, gently smoothing out the redness in her cheeks. Emma’s pliant, and lets her run a brush through her hair, smoothing the frayed strands down with some water. 

It’s nice. Being taken care of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Koryandr](https://koryandr.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.


	8. Killian - Second Star to the Right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all she wrote for Season 2. Season 3 is way more in-depth and the chapters are much longer, so from here on out, I'll likely just post one chapter a day.

Even as he’s sitting in the dungeons of that building in New York, he still can’t find it. He knows the Crocodile is dying, he procured the poison himself, there is no cure here. He will die. 

So why doesn’t he feel better?

They tell him the Crocodile lives, and it’s so easy to fall back in the fire of rage, to fall back into the trap of vengeance. He tires of playing pawn in others’ games, but if it gets him what he wants, so be it. His pride is not too large to play submissive as a means to an end. 

“You’re going to destroy an entire town, killing everyone in it?”

“Yea, including your enemy.”

Killian has always tried to be an honorable man over the years, only killing the wicked, only hurting if he has to. Steal from the rich, never hurt a woman. He shot Belle at the town line, but never intended to kill her. 

This? This will kill everything. For a moment, he lets himself imagine it. He’d go out but he’d bring the Crocodile down with him, bring Regina and her treachery, bring these two. But then, it would also kill everyone else. Belle, the cricket, the nurses at the hospital with kind smiles and gentle hands, the one that brought him the books. There are children here, innocent families. Snow, Emma and her boy. Baelfire. 

He’s willing to bargain with his own life and the Crocodile, but he won’t take everyone down with him. 

“If there’s one thing I want more than my revenge it’s my life.” He tells them with a wry grin. 

  
  


They may be willing to part with their lives for the moral high ground, but he is not. He watches her reason with the townspeople, and she’s right. The best chance they have is to let the Queen sacrifice herself to get out of there. He doesn’t want them to die, but he’s not going to kill himself for some foolish virtuous quest to save the evil Queen. Not a single person in that town that he has put trust in has followed through on their end of the bargain. 

As he slips the bean from the pouch, he remembers Emma latching that cuff around his wrist in the Giant’s Castle and feels less bad about it. She betrayed him first, afterall.

“You and I -- we understand each other. Look out for yourself and you’ll never get hurt, right?” Emma asks leaning into his space far more than she’s usually comfortable with. 

“Worked quite well for me.” He responds, but she bites back quickly. 

“Yea, until the day that it doesn’t.” Her gaze is intense, and for a moment, he’s reminded of a scene from long ago. He stood on the deck of his ship. 

( _“Are you certain this is what you wish to do?” He asked Milah, one hand resting in his belt, the other on the rigging behind him. She looked up from the dock below, and he watched as her eyes and expression shifted. She was scared, but she stared at him for a long minute, and then slowly her expression hardened down into something serious. She was still tentative, still weary, but a fire of determination burned in her eyes now._

 _“Yes.” She spoke, voice strong and unwavering._ )

“It might be stupid, it might be crazy but we’re doing it. So...you can join us and be a part of something, or you can do what you do best and be alone.” The words touch something in him, but he’s still bitter towards the woman, to all of them. He’s not laying his life on the line for those that have proven they won’t do the same for him. She believes her words, she does, but as she says it, that fire in her eyes, the one that reminds him of Milah, dissipates. 

“Why are you really doing this?” He asks, once the others have cleared out. Her gaze never shifts from his, but he watches something happen that he’s only seen once before. As she stares at him something in her facade shifts, something soft peeks through those steel walls of hers. 

“That kid just lost his father today, I’m not letting him lose a mother, too.” 

“His father? Who’s Henry’s father?”

“Neal.” she says, as if he should have known, but he doesn’t miss the flinch in her expression as she utters the name. The weight of that settles on him uncomfortably, and he doesn’t miss the way her hands clutch the pouch tight to her chest. 

No. He won’t be swayed by another pretty face. He gets as far as the docks before the guilt starts eating away at him, but it’s not until he’s already set sail that he sees the letters carved into the steering. It’s the Port and Starboard letters he had carved into the wood to help Baelfire all of those years ago, terms Silver would have lashed him for forgetting. 

He remembers Bae’s bright face when he taught him, the laughter of the boy as the crew taught him the rigging and how to climb up to the crow’s nest. The determined set of his brow as he learned the rigging knots, his frustration with the bowline. He remembers the betrayal on his face, throwing Milah’s portrait, voice cracking with his passion, how he pleaded with the boy, but Bae turned his back. He had felt the same indignation at the time. Bae hurt him first, so he called Felix, and told himself it was Bae’s fault. He didn’t rip apart Bae’s family, he was just too young to understand.

He’s been telling himself a lot of lies over the years to live with what he’s done. 

But it’s the memory of standing at that wheel, hand tightening around the Enchanted wood, and longing to go back for the boy that does him in. 

He loved Milah, and she loved him. It wasn’t his fault she was married to a coward. But he knew it was wrong to leave the boy, they both did, and she cried herself to sleep enough over it that he felt the pain of it as well. He didn’t steal Milah, didn’t make her leave, and she shouldn’t have stayed in a loveless marriage. But they didn’t need to leave the boy either. 

For a few days there, he thought he had done it. He thought he succeeded in killing the Crocodile. And it did nothing. He wasn’t happy, he didn’t feel fulfilled, he just felt empty. He ran on anger and vengeance and pain for so long and then, to have it all be gone and to still have his life? What was left for him? He was contemplating how he was going to kill himself before Tamarra found him in that cellar. 

Even now, knowing the Crocodile lives...he’s just tired. He’s been alive for so long, he longs to be reunited with his brother, with Milah. He misses them.

He spent so long seeking the Crocodile’s penance, he never paid his own for what he did to Baelfire: Helping his mother abandon him, turning him over to the lost boys. He was just a boy who had been through so much, and he never got to say the words that still catch in his throat. Baelfire’s gone and he can never pay the man the penance he owes. 

He will pay his penance to his son.

Then he would depart this world. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Koryandr](https://koryandr.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.


	9. Emma - Lost Girl

She shrugs her parents off and heads down below deck to the cabin she had been the last time she was on the ship. She paces for a bit before the bar in the ceiling shines under the moonlight and she finds herself doing pull ups just to get the energy out. She’s pissed, and angry, and so fucking tired. 

She’s not alone for long when Hook finds her. She feels his eyes before he speaks, and she continues, hoping he will read her energy and fucking leave her alone. 

But of course he doesn’t. He’s actually...not his usual self, hasn’t been since he came back to shore. He’s soft spoken down here, none of the usual quips or false bravado. And he hands her the sword, no longer than her arm, and tells her it’s _his._ This piece of metal is something from his life before her, so long before her, but it doesn’t feel like him. Not the Neal she knew, maybe this is what Baelfire felt like. She grips it tightly in her hands nonetheless. She’ll reconcile the two in her mind eventually. Neal and Baelfire.

He doesn’t hold her gaze long enough for her to get a read on him, shying away to pick up the rum when she mentions him being Sentimental. The rum burns in a good way, a dangerous way. She’s no stranger to drinking yourself to the bottom of a bottle, has been doing it longer than was legal for her. 

They throw back a couple of shots. Her for Neal, him for whatever part of Neal he remembers. They sit in silence for a bit. It’s heavy, but not with the pressure to speak, just the weight of Neal between them. It wasn’t the same mourning with Henry or her parents. They didn’t _know_ him. Even the bad parts of him, the parts of him that she hated, that still hurt her to this day. He wasn’t a great man, but she loved him and lost him again. 

She wants to ask exactly how Hook knew Neal, what parts of Neal he knew that she didn’t. 

“How long was he with you?” She asks instead.

“Long enough for me to know that I miss him, too.” He’s earnest in a way she hasn’t seen from him, quiet, somber. There’s no hope speech, no biting words, no judgement. They just sit together for a minute. 

It’s nice while it lasts. 

After the storm they take her below deck while Hook runs off to check the enchantment over the ship is taking care of the damage. “It’ll repair itself, but it’ll take time.” He told them before flinging himself down into the bowels of the ship. Regina elected to stay on deck while Mary Margaret and David helped her into one of the crew cabins. 

“I’m fine,” She tries to shove them off, but they wrap her in towels and blankets, and David insists on sitting next to her. 

She wants to still be mad at them, but she’s just so tired. 

Hook comes in later and hands David a bundle of something before going back to his work. 

“What’s that?” She asks, trying to eye whatever David is laying out on the bench where Hook kept his shot glass. He hands something off to Mary Margaret.

“It’s a brush.” Mary Margaret says, handing it over. It’s heavy and the back has some silver filigree carved into it, and the bristles are firm. 

“Why does a pirate have a hair brush?” Mary Margaret asks dubiously, reaching out to rest a hand on the wall to hold herself steady against the sway of the boat. 

"He probably stole it." David says with disdain in his voice.

“Milah.” Emma breathes, running her thumb over the raised pattern on the back.

“Who?” David asks. 

“Uh,” Emma glances at the doorway to make sure he’s not lurking, “Milah, she was Hook’s um...he loved her.”

“Captain Hook was in love?” David scoffs a bit, but the smile lights his features. 

“Yea,” Emma breathes. She won’t reveal any more of the story to them, they don’t need to know. 

“Okay, well, he brought some clothes by, we can start a fire to dry yours off, you should change and hang them up.” David says, handing the bundle of clothes over to Emma. Emma unravels the bundle, and it’s one of those black linen shirts of his with a brocade pattern raised in the fabric. There is a pair of linen pants as well with a belt to hold them up. 

David leaves, and Mary Margaret helps her change out of the sea-soaked clothes and then takes them away to “put them on the hearth.” Emma struggles with her hair for a bit, knotted and tangled from the salt water she was submerged in, but eventually she works through all of the knots. Hook’s shirt hangs off one of her shoulders, but the fastenings, though he doesn’t seem to use them himself, secure up enough that she’s not exposed. She throws the linen pants on and tightens the belt as far as she can before laying down on the lower bunk. 

It’s odd, following him through the jungle. But she knows now that she has no choice but to trust him. He came back, no prompting, no reason. He had nothing to come back for, but he came back. And he’s been _different_ since he has. Calmer, like the fight was drained out of him. All of that rage, the thinly veiled anger and hate seems to have dissipated somewhere between New York and him showing up at the loft. 

She remembers their conversation back in the storage room. The tick of his jaw when Gold stepped onto the ship. Maybe she was right, maybe he realized that his pursuits were leading nowhere. He seemed...empty. 

She trusts him. Trusts that he’ll lead her to Henry. Maybe the trust was forged when he handed the bean over to her _“maybe I just needed reminding that I could.”_ Or maybe it was sitting in the cabin with Neal a weight between them. 

He’s done nothing but help since. He’s been cautious, answered any questions, explained his reasoning when prompted. He’s not even flirting anymore, just the occasional bout of banter between them. But only with her, not with Mary Margaret or Regina, and certainly not with David. If she had more than a breath of time, she might examine it further, try to sort out just what was going on with him, but for now, she trusted him to get her to Henry. 

When he’s not taking the lead, he usually sticks behind or beside her, a hand at her back when she stumbles or pointing out various flora and fauna, most of which seems to be poisonous. He’s so tame it’s almost unnerving. It’s nice, them trusting each other. Whatever odd connection they have seems to translate well in teamwork. 

_“We make quite the team.”_ He had told her with a wry grin back at the Giant’s castle. He was right...not that she’d ever tell him that. 

“So, just how did you unlock the map?” He asks when the rum is running down her throat, warming her core. 

She remembers back to the beanstalk, his words to her about the lost boys. _“An Orphan's an Orphan."_

“I did what Pan asked,” is all she offers back. 

“And just who are you Swan?” He counters. His eyes, without the rage in them, are more expressive than she remembers. He’s not searching for answers the calculating way he was on the beanstalk. The tone is like their banter, but his eyes are honestly curious.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She teases lightly, handing the flask back to him. 

She’s not prepared for the “Perhaps I would” uttered back to her, voice smooth and lilting in the accent. The part that stills her though? No tingle in the back of her mind, no waver in his voice, he doesn’t dart his eyes away. That wasn’t part of the game, honesty wasn’t supposed to be in his eyes when he flirted with her. They were attracted to each other, they flirt, it’s fun. It’s not...it’s not this. She walks away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Koryandr](https://koryandr.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.


	10. Killian - Lost Boy

He finds her below deck on his ship. He lingers in the doorway for a moment, watching her pull herself up with the bar. He can feel the tension from the doorway, but after the spat with her parents and the Crocodile, he wished to seek her out. The Prince insisted he could handle the helm, not that there was anything to handle so long as they kept on course. She’s a bit short, and doesn’t seem interested in their usual brand of friendly banter. After some prompting she finally spins on him. 

“What do you want?” She says, jumping down from the bench. She seems tired, broken in a way he hasn’t seen her before. Those wounds she usually hides seem fresh, raw. Part of him feels equally exposed. 

“To give you something. You know, Baelfire and I once spent a lot of time together.”

“He was always ‘Neal’ to me.” Her voice is downcast, steady, the same tone it has been since he sailed back to shore. 

“Yeah. Right.” He grabs the cutlass from the locked chest, hefts the weight about in his hand a moment and then turns to her. “This was his.”

The weight will be good for her. He’s seen her abysmal attempts with the heavier broadsword, clearly not meant for a beginner. Besides, she was too nimble a fighter for a broadsword, much like a pirate, she’s a fighter for quick blows, swipes. The small cutlass would be better for her, the less weighty the blade the better extension she will get. He hasn't kept much over the years, not much in the way of personal storage on a pirate ship, but he kept this. Maybe to remind him of his own failures. 

He remembers going back to the cave after Bae left the island and there the cutlas sat, tucked beneath his cot. Like the cowardly thief he was he stole it. 

She grabs it tentatively, then glances up at him. “I didn't realize you were sentimental.”

He shares a shot of rum with her. He wants a minute to mourn, he’s done so much of it over the years, he knows to only indulge for a short minute. And she seems so...off. She doesn’t seem herself and it’s a bit unnerving to him. He gets it though, to lose someone you love like that, the father of your child. It must be so much. He doesn’t know if he has a right to mourn, if Bae would want it, but he mourns with her anyway. Nobody else above deck knows him, nobody else understands the person behind Neal or Baelfire. 

He pours her another, and then sits back on the bench, letting the rough crest of Neverland’s waters soothe him. He’s spent so much of his life in these waters, so many years. The place fills him with dread, the scent in the air has him tense, but in the worst up way, Neverland has become somewhat of a home to him, though he certainly didn’t miss it.

A stray thought passes him that she looks beautiful like this. Bare-armed, angry, fierce like when she tied him to that tree. When the ship leans just right and the moonlight spills in through the grates overhead, her skin glows under the pale moonlight and her hair shines like spun silver. But that distant look in her eyes, the absence of her being, is something that draws him in. Like a moth to a flame, it’s that same connection from back on the beanstalk, years of loss and abandonment live in that mile-long gaze of hers. He knows it well. 

He wonders what happened to her to get her here. He knows he doesn’t have a right to ask.

He doesn’t expect his heart to stutter in his chest the way it does as they wait for her to breathe again after fishing her out of the water.

The Prince really seems to have a stick up his ass, and it’s going to get him killed. If he insists on traveling along the dreamshade, Killian’s not going to be the one to lead them, he falls back to tag along with Emma. The women of their group are really the more practical, level headed of the bunch. 

He and the Queen go a ways back, Snow is trepid in the environment, but knows how to survive and the prince is out of his element, wrestling for control in an uncontrollable situation. Emma, their self appointed leader, seems to have decided to trust him at some point. Were she in a better mood, he’d make jest of it, but if they’re going to survive he needs her to continue trusting them, because without her the others will not follow. 

When he met them, it was just Emma and Snow, however, with the Prince and Queen added to their dynamic, he sees things he couldn't before, puzzle pieces fall into place. She’s so unlike them. Snow and the Prince, they’re so...earnest. Very outward with their feelings, all claiming smiles and placating tones with each other.

Emma doesn’t seem to fit next to them. She’s the spitting image of the two, but if she were a missing piece in their puzzle she’s been too mangled and weathered to look like it fits anymore. She’s not like her parents, ever the virtuous heroes, but she’s not quite like him and the queen, drenched and scarred by the darkness. She knows darkness, but she also knows light. There’s such strength, such pure power, just beneath her fingertips, but her shoulders are heavy with the weight of her past, something the royals will never understand. 

He wonders, as he observes them, if this is what he looked like next to Liam. A paragon of honor, the best man he’s ever known, and then little Killian, the screw up. 

No, Emma’s not a screw up. She’s strong. They call her the Savior. It’s befitting. 

He’s lounging near the fire (that he re-lit) when he sees her sit up out of the corner of his eye. She lets out a frustrated groan and clutches at her ears, fingers fisting in the hair there. 

“Can’t sleep, love?” He asks her, taking a drink from his flask. She spins where she sits on her make-shift bed, hair sticking up and eyes red-rimmed. 

“What are you doing?” She asks with a sharp tone.

He holds his hands up in mock surrender. “Just passing the time.” She glares at him still, but yawns and rubs at one of her eyes. “Care for a nightcap?” He grins at her. 

Emma, after glaring at him once more, hoists herself up and comes to sit next to him in front of the fire. She holds her hand out for the flask and he passes it over. 

“Can’t sleep?” He asks her again, taking the flask back once she’s done with it. She wipes the back of her hand across her mouth and stares at him out of the corner of her eye for a moment. The others are soundly asleep, it’s just them. Her shoulders slump a bit and she nods, resting her head in her hands. 

“Won’t stop crying.” she says quietly. 

“They never do.” He nods, drinking from the flask. The burn of the rum warms his bones and makes his head just a little foggier. 

“You hear them too?” She asks, an almost desperate lilt to her tone.

“Aye,” he offers her the flask again, “I was here for a long time. It’s easier to ignore on the water given the distance, but they’re louder here on land.”

“How come we’re the only ones who hear them?” She runs one hand back through her hair, grabbing the flask with her other hand. 

“Many reasons, probably.” Killian shrugs. “I think you know though.”

“Humor me.” She pushes, shoving the flask into his lap when he doesn’t reach for it or look at her. 

“Well, once a Lost Boy, always a Lost Boy.” Killian says with a self deprecating smile in her direction. “Or Lost Girl, in your case.”

“Are you telling me Captain Hook was a Lost Boy?” She asks gently. He looks over at her, at the bags beneath her eyes and the weariness in her shoulders, and smiles at her.

“As much as you were, at least.” She returns his small smile, and then sighs, closing her eyes in front of the fire. 

“What happened to you?” 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He parrots her own words back at her. His smile spreads into a grin, and as the words sink in she smiles in tandem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Koryandr](https://koryandr.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.


	11. Emma - Good Form

They make camp again, setting up the lean-to’s takes longer than anticipated, and they send Hook off in search of some supplies. He knows the terrain, the flora and fauna, and she’s better with manual labor. It works. Besides, she’s in no mood to be ambushed by Pan tonight.

Mary Margaret is fanning the embers for the fire when Hook returns with a sack full of things. 

“I bring treasure,” He teases, walking up to the group of them settled around the fire. Emma and Mary Margaret smile a bit but David just glowers up at him. Emma scoots over so he can deposit the bag on the ground and sit down next to her. 

“What’d you find, Hook?” Mary Margaret asks cordially. Hook gives David a long look before emptying the bag out on the ground next to him.

“Well M’lady, I filled our canteens and retrieved some fruit on my way back.” He holds up some rounded orange fruits and a dangerous looking pink spiked one. “Care to try?”

“Are they going to kill me?” Emma asks dubiously, raising an eyebrow at him. He just smirks a bit, then holds one of the orange fruits up for her. 

“Would you like to find out?” He holds the orange fruit out to her and she takes it from him with an eye roll. 

“How do I eat this?” she asks, rolling the fruit in her hand. Hook reaches over and grabs the knife from her boot, twisting it and handing it to her hilt-first. He walks her through the proper way to open it (cut it in half, score it with your knife, and eat the chunks. Just like mango.) and then steals a bit of it from her first, licking at some stray juice down the side of his thumb. Not poison. Also she does not need to start thinking about his tongue or his hands. Not the train of thought she needs to go down. 

He tosses their canteens back to Mary Margaret and David across the circle, and then takes care to hand them a few fruits gathered up in a bundle. They all take some time to eat their dinner, and Hook also brings out the pink fruit, but it tastes like soured milk so she passes on any more of it, choosing to eat another one of the orange mango-things of his. They don’t taste quite like mango, but she’ll take it. 

After they’ve eaten and gone through too much of their water supply, Hook sets aside some fruit for Tinkerbelle (still weird) and Regina and then leans back against the log, propping his feet up best he can around the fire. 

“Is that a coconut?” She asks when he pulls one of the fuzzy brown orbs into his lap. He glances at her a bit curiously but nods. 

“Yes, Swan. If they're good, the meat inside is good protein.” He holds it up to his ear and shakes it back and forth. “And the water inside is sweet as well.” 

His voice is calm, and she can also feel the fatigue in her shoulders, and with Mary Margaret and David cuddled up across from them part of her just wants to lay down and sleep. The other, larger part is too concerned about Henry to shut her brain off. She folds her legs up to her chest and leans forward, locking her jaw on her knees and watching the heat of the fire distort the environment around it. 

She lets her mind get lost thinking about Henry, about Pan’s words, her own admissions to get the stupid map to work. 

After hearing a few clicks, she looks over her shoulder. Hook is grinding the end of his hook into one of the eyes of the coconut, a look of tired concentration on his face. She leans back a bit to watch him better. Once the hole is properly scored, he hands it over to her. She mutters a thank you and then takes it, sipping the water inside. 

“That’s way sweeter than coconut.” Emma says, moving her tongue around the odd flavor.

“Coconut tastes different in your realm?” Hook asks, seemingly curious. 

“Yea, less sweet. We’ll have to show you when we get back.” She says the words off handedly, but the weight in them doesn’t escape her. Of course he’s coming back with them. But when did she get comfortable enough around him to talk about fucking tase testing fruit? She takes a longer swig of the water. 

He doesn’t say anything, just spends the next few minutes drilling holes in the other coconuts he picked up, handing one over to Mary Margaret and David. On the third, he whistles for Tink and the fairy comes back from the edge of camp to collect it. The two share a private smile, something familiar that has her dangerously curious about the history there. 

“Here, Swan.” He holds a hand out for the fruit sitting forgotten in her hand. Absently she hands it over. He shakes it a bit, and then brings it to his mouth to drink the last of the water. It does nothing for her: the dark cut of his jaw, his adam's apple bobbing as he drinks down the water, his mouth where hers was only moments ago. She needs sleep. 

He holds it steady and beats the rounded end of his hook against the shell until it cracks in two, separating out into two semicircles. He hands one half to her, and keeps the other in hand, scooping a chunk of the white meat out with his hook and popping it into his mouth. 

She doesn’t watch the way his lips close around it.

Fuck

Neal’s cave is...a lot. He always told her he “roughed it out” when he was a kid, and she assumed he meant on the streets like her but...god. The cave is fucking covered in drawings, white chalk covers the walls from the ground up to wherever it seems he could reach. The P and S etched on the wall look familiar to her but she can’t place it. Everything else? The faces, homes, the ship and doodles...none of it is familiar. 

Maybe she never really knew Neal afterall. 

This? The kid that lived here? She has no idea who he is. It’s like looking through a stranger’s diary. You know it means something, but there’s no context. 

“He got it from his mother.” Hook tells her almost absently. She looks at him when he says it, and by time he meets her gaze it’s clear he didn’t mean to let it slip. He averts his gaze and turns from her. Did Hook know Neal’s mom?

There’s Hook, with the false bravado and grins and winking. But sometimes there’s this whole other side to him, and she only ever gets glimpses of it, where his voice softens and his eyes glaze over. She’s seen it before, when she asked about Milah on the beanstalk. He averted his gaze then too. But he’s not lying, it’s like looking at the drawings is too painful for him. 

She wants to know more about the man that lies beneath Captain Hook. ( _ What did he say his real name was again?) _ She wants more of the earnestness of their exchange below deck on the ship, when she put him in storage back in New York, when she left him on the beanstalk. The way his eyes soften when he talks about Neal, she feels it down to her toes. 

“You knew him pretty well, didn’t you?” She asks softly, her parents and Regina occupied on the other side of the cave.

“We spent some time together,” he says after a moment, and she could swear there was moisture in his eyes before he blinked it away.

He didn’t just know Neal. Her parents knew Neal, Henry knew Neal. He  _ knew _ him. His expression is open and vulnerable, like even just being here pains him. He knew him like she did. Albeit, a different version of him, but it was still Neal. She knows he understands the dull ache in her chest because she knows he can feel it too. It’s overwhelming, even just thinking about it makes it hurt more. 

“You alright there, Swan?” He asks gently and this time she brushes him off. 

It’s all too much. The nightlight, her fucking  _ parents _ she hasn’t slept in days and she’s just so fucking tired of being so upset all of the time. It fucking  _ hurts _ everything about this hurts. Thinking of Neal, of all of the pain and hurt there, all they went through hurts. He loved her and yet he still hurt her more than anyone else in her life has. How is she supposed to fucking get over that? She’s so fucking pissed off and upset and it hurts that he’s gone because she still fucking loves him and that hurts too. He fucking broke her and she’ll always love him. How pathetic does that make her look? 

“Neal stopped counting.” She remarks, kneeling on the raised platform of his bed. She traces the ghost of faded chalk lines, on the wall there. 

“‘Cause he got off the island.” Mary Margaret says, like she knows. She’ll never understand. How could she? She was raised a fucking princess in a castle with servants and maids. She may have been a thief in the forest but it never broke her. 

She glances at Hook. “He was here longer.” she says to him, and there’s a small solemn nod from him with those glazed over eyes again. He understands. He knows what it means to be broken,  _ abandoned _ , to have hope and then lose it. 

Is that what Henry’s going through? Is he ticking off the tally’s in his mind? The kid has more hope and belief in his pink finger than she has in her whole body, but to be trapped in another realm with no idea how to escape and get home? That could break anyone. And he’s so young. She knows the look of a child that’s been broken by the world, sees it in the mirror, in Hook. But the idea of that look in Henry’s eyes hurts more than anything she’s feeling right now. She gave him up once when it was the best thing for him, she won’t give up on him now. Not while she’s alive.

That’s what she can focus on right now. Not Hook or her  _ parents _ or Regina’s shitty fucking attitude and not the Neal-sized wound in her heart. Henry. 

Hook tries to stop her on the way out of the cave, some fucking speech about how he  _ understands _ what it means. She knows he does, and maybe she’s cold about it, but she’s in no mood to deal with him. She can’t think about that unspoken  _ thing _ between them, not now, not while Henry needs her. 

After that, the soft turn of his eyes is gone and he’s back to being Captain Hook. Mary Margaret instructs them all to gather vine and then shows Emma and Regina how to spin it together. Mary Margaret’s an expert at it, her fingers move fast and nimble over the strands. Emma...well Emma tries, but she keeps getting distracted by the glowering pirate in the corner. 

He had been all but benched by Mary Margaret, (“Sorry Hook, you need both hands to spin vine.”) and David didn’t seem to want any help gathering so he sat at the corner of camp and sipped from his flask. She can’t tell if he’s glaring at her or not. But whenever she peeks up his gaze is heavy like he’s gonna stare a hole through to her fucking soul, and it sends pinpricks down her arm and up her neck. Maybe he’s just undressing her with his eyes. 

She’s not sure which one she wants to be true. Maybe they’re just more attracted to one another when they’re pissed off because she’s not sure herself if she wants to punch him or fuck him half the time. Neither of which are a viable option.

He’s short, and glowering, and after having calmed down from the talk about Neal maybe she feels a little bad for it.  _ Maybe _ .

But she’s just stockpiling the guilt today. She holds Mary Margaret back while Regina rips that poor kid’s heart out of his chest and tries to feel no remorse. Henry, sweet innocent Henry cut that kid’s face and she doesn’t care if she has to rip his heart out herself she’s willing to do anything to get him back. She will not let him go without a fight, she will scratch and claw and bleed to get Henry back, to let him know she hasn’t abandoned him. 

She spent her entire fucking life hoping, wishing, praying for her parents, always wondering why they gave her up, how they could just leave her there. And always, inevitably, it rounded back to what  _ she _ did to make them hate her. She was just a baby, did she cry too much? Did they not love her?

She will not let Henry’s life be consumed with the same questions. 

She doesn’t realize how much she misses his face until she sees it again. When she hears his “Mom?” her heart skips a beat and she could fucking cry. He’s there, he’s safe, he’s  _ alive _ . He knows they’re coming for him. It’s worth it. It’s all worth it. 

Blame the sleep deprivation, but she’s on cloud fucking nine going back to camp. Well, as much as one can be when stuck in god damn Neverland. David and Hook get back from whatever weird bonding trip they’ve been on, sans the mysterious magical sextant and they’re both acting weird. David kisses the shit out of Mary Margaret and Emma may actually blush as how uncomfortable it makes her. Hook, however, is acting...shifty. 

“He saved my life.” David says. 

She’s not sure what comes over her. But for the first time since leaving Storybrooke she doesn’t feel dead inside, in fact she’s almost happy (and knows full well how temporary that happiness might be.) And he somehow managed to sway David, the one person in their group most reluctant to trust him, by saving his life apparently. 

The warm burn of rum is becoming familiar to her. 

“You really save his life?” He’s still acting weird. She almost misses the false bravado. But maybe this Hook, the one who can’t take a compliment and looks at his feet instead of her and scratches his neck is the same Hook with soft, sad eyes. 

“That surprise you?” He counters, barely glancing at her. Yea. Still pissed at her. She holds the flask out to him. He glances down at hit, then up at her before sauntering towards her to grab it. Pissed, but at least not in a stalemate. 

She goes for some levity, “Well, you and David aren’t exactly, how do you say it,  _ mates. _ ” 

But he ducks his head and looks away from her, like he did when he brought up Neal’s mom. “Doesn’t mean I’d leave your father to perish on this island.” When he does look at her, she sees hurt there in his expression, and that little bubble of guilt pokes its’ ugly head again. 

“Thank you.” She says. He’s the one to look away this time, and he does that neck scratch tick again as pink blotches form on his cheeks. He’s nervous. 

“Well, perhaps gratitude is in order now.” There’s normal Hook flirting again, a stupid leer, a familiar grin, and two taps to his lips that she can’t help but glance down at. This is familiar. 

“Yeah.” She says, unable to help the way the corners of her mouth tick up as well, “That’s what the thank you was for.”

“Is that all your father’s life is worth to you?” He says like a fucking challenge, stepping forward into her space. He’s so full of shit. 

“Please,” she says, “you couldn’t handle it.” 

_ (“I like a challenge.”  _ he had said on the beanstalk.)

“Perhaps you’re the one that couldn’t handle it _. _ ” His voice is low, quiet, just loud enough for the space between them as he leans towards her, ticking the ‘t’ at the end of his phrase. She could back down, let it go. Walk away from this before she does something she regrets. But god she feels good and he’s there and  _ so hot _ and he’s into her and…and she’s never one to back down from a challenge.

Before she can talk herself out of it, she fists her hands in the lapels of his jacket and drags his mouth to hers. She grips the back of his head and molds herself to him even more, keeping him there. He tastes like rum and kisses her back and touches the back of her head and she  _ needs more.  _ Her hands ball into fists in his collar, and she surges forward, licking into his mouth, and just  _ taking _ from him.

It’s so fucking good, she’s imagined this since he tied that stupid fucking scarf around her wrist with his mouth. Aborted fantasies (strictly in the ‘never gonna happen’ category) of what he would taste like, what he’d smell like, his fingers bruising her hips and his face between her legs. God it’s been so long since she felt anything between her legs but herself, but desire burns in her stomach (and she wants to squirm a bit) to just keep going, press him against a tree and take. 

She drops down off of her toes, staggering back a bit but keeping him caught by the collar. He moves forward with her, forehead pressed against her own, nose squished against hers. He breathes hot against her face.

“That was…” he tries to speak but instead he just angles his jaw up a bit, asking, drawn to her like gravity. His voice sounds wrecked, and knowing she was the one to do that thrills her, satisfaction alight in her chest. 

“A one time thing.” She replies before she can capture his mouth again, releasing his jacket and forcing herself back. If she doesn’t stop now she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to later. She turns around before she can tempt herself to kiss him again. “Don’t follow me. Wait five minutes. Go get some firewood or something.”

“As you wish.” He says after a moment, sounding just as breathless as she feels. He doesn’t understand, doesn’t get why her heart skipped a beat when he said it, but she smiles to herself nonetheless. Every little girl wanted to feel like Buttercup and have their own Westley to say that to them. Granted, whatever the fuck they have between them isn’t love, it isn’t some sweet romance, but indulging in her own little Princess Bride moment? It's a nice thought. 

She can’t help but feel like she won their little exchange, whatever it was.

She feels good.


	12. Killian - Good Form

The Prince must think the hand constantly clutched to his ribcage is subtle. It must be subtle enough so for Snow, for she says nothing. The Prince seems that he’d rather do anything but show the wound to Killian, but he lifts his shirt nonetheless. 

The pixie dust, if it were to work, sounds like a better idea than the water, so Killian says nothing of it at first, but it’s the Prince’s own hubris that keeps his family in the dark. He won’t lie to Emma about it, if she were to ask him. Emma’s put trust in him, he won’t betray that. But part of him wants the Prince’s trust too, to prove his presumed hatred for him is unsubstantiated, to prove him wrong. (Even if his distrust may be justified given his past behaviors.) His family deserves to say goodbye the way he and Liam never quite got to, the way he never got to for his father ( _ before) _ or his mother. 

He looks for ways to steer them towards Dead Man’s Peak, but without alerting Emma or Snow to the poison seeping towards the Prince’s heart, there’s not much he can do. It’s close to Baelfire’s cave dwelling though, he spent time there after the boy escaped, he knows it well. He’s already tried to glean all he can from the drawings on the cave wall, stared at the chalk etchings until he went cross eyed. If there were something obvious here he would have found it, but perhaps they will find something he missed. 

That thing Emma has, the aura that sets her apart from the others, he feels it heavier here. He’s traced the faces etched into this wall more times than he can count, knows exactly how many tally marks lie on the wall next to Baelfire’s cot and at one time he knew the number of days between when he stopped counting and when he left. They’re crude drawings done by a child, but the physical ache of missing Milah hits him as he looks at the little houses and figures dancing along the cave wall, how lonely her son must have been here. How many times did he come here, think about bringing Bae back to the ship and then was too cowardly to do anything about it? 

Emma hops onto the raised platform with ease, crouching down and running her fingers along the tallys. “Look here.” She says, tracing the last mark made on the wall. He glances at her face. That heaviness is there in her expression, the familiar downward slope of her eyes, the corners of her mouth. He knows that. “Neal stopped counting.”

“Cause he got off the island.” Snow says. He’s happy to let them think that, but Emma shakes her head minutely, then turns to him. 

“He was here longer.” She says to him. He keeps his eyes trained on the tallys, but nods to confirm her silent question. 

The tally marks are familiar to him. As a boy, he would etch them into the corner post of their bunk, counting the days under his father would come back to collect them. He kept an old nail tucked under his bed to carve the light dashes into the wood at night, when he was too scared to sleep and his father was no longer there to comfort him or when the rocking waves made him nauseous. He got up to twenty three before Silver found out. He was tied to the mainmast and forced to count each lash until he was a sobbing blubbering mess. 

He remembers crying for his father, Liam screaming for him, but no absolution came. Nobody helped. Nobody cared. He would count in his head after that, but nobody came and eventually he stopped counting.

“You got that from scribbles?” The queen asks and he turns away. There’s a lump in his throat, tension in his chest and his hand itches for his flask. 

“I got that because it’s what I did every time I went to a new foster home.” Emma jumps down and levels the queen with a tone that is challenging, but too tired to fight. “I counted days until counting seemed pointless.”

There’s a certain loneliness to it, to being the only one that understands the scars of your life. But she’s different. She understands loss, grief, abandonment like he does. He’s had centuries to mask his own with pretty smiles and eloquent words, with abrasive flirting and forward gestures. Swan hides hers behind a rough exterior, with a cold shoulder and a permanent frown. He wonders if her method makes her feel any less dead inside than his does. Does she drown out the voices with drink too? Perhaps another vice.

A part of him he’s long since tried to ignore creeps up and tells him to reach out, put a comforting hand on her shoulder like Liam would, or use kind soft words like Milah. Her family doesn’t get it and the Queen certainly doesn’t understand but  _ he _ does. He knows what it means to lose hope, what that does to someone. He knows what it feels like to be left alone in the world without anyone to guide you. He knows what it means to be lost. 

There are just some things you can’t understand without living through the experience. His thoughts are still heavy but Emma is not perturbed. She powers through, declares her next steps in the fight for her son. She’s a fighter. She knows how to scratch and claw and bleed to get what you need to survive and she will do no less for her son. Something fierce blooms in his chest at her surety, at her strength. Admiration? Fondness? Compassion?

Whatever it is, he can’t ignore it along with the weight of his memories. And that voice, the one that told him to comfort her gets louder until she goes to exit the cave and he can’t help but stop her. 

“I, uh I just wanted to let you know that I do know what it feels like, to lose hope.” The words come out tangled in a nervous laugh but he needs her to know. He needs to acknowledge that thing in her that calls to him, the echoes of her that he hears but her family cannot. 

“I know what this is.” Perhaps he should have foreseen this, the instant closure of her walls, the sharp way she cuts him down and averts her eyes. Either way, he doesn’t anticipate it and the cool rejection in her words stings just a bit and that voice in him shies away. “This...you...you know...trying to... _ bond _ with me. So save your breath. I'm not in the mood.”

“Let me give you a bit of advice, Hook.” The prince catches him on the way out, chin held aloft and hand lingering on his hilt.  _ Eavesdropper _ . “She's never gonna like you.”

“Is that so?” He smiles at the Prince and his usual haughty tone. 

“Well, how could she? You're nothing but a pirate.” The prince says coldly, then turns to walk away. 

The words hit harder than he imagined they would, and for a moment as the prince walks away, he contemplates how easy it would be to just not tell him. To let the man die of his own hubris, to never mention the water. The man spoke those words to hurt when all Killian’s done since they left the realm without magic has been to help. It would be easy to just not help. To let the hurt boil into rage, to leave them to their own devices. 

It would be easy. 

But he’s done the easy thing for so long and what has it gotten him? A hook for a hand and a tentative alliance with a family that seems to despise him half the time. “ _ So...you can join us and be a part of something, or you can do what you do best and be alone.”  _ Emma had offered. Perhaps he did tire of the loneliness. Perhaps he did long to be a part of something again, something greater than himself. 

But a Dreamshade death is cruel. Could he stand by and watch as the prince’s heart stopped beating, watch Snow and Emma hold him in their arms? Would Emma have red stained cheeks and bloodshot eyes like she did in that establishment, when she told him of Baelfire’s death? He doesn’t want to find out what she looks like when she cries. 

For as much as the Prince doesn’t like him, he won’t do it. It may be the easy choice, but it would be too hard to live with. His heart is heavy enough, he doesn’t want to live with more weight on it. 

He’s told off decisively by the women that he’ll be of no help with Snow’s plan. 

“Sorry Hook, you need both hands to spin Vine.” Snow gives him a curt nod and he’s cast off to the side of camp. The rum makes his blood warm, and his thoughts weigh less but he gets lost in them. He thinks of the dreamshade rushing towards the Prince’s heart with every beat. He thinks of his stupid stubborn older brother, the way he’d shoved the dreamshade right into his own bloodstream. David was doing pretty much the same. 

Without conscious thought, with Emma in his line of sight he can’t help but think of her, of what her father is choosing to do to her. He didn’t know Liam was going to die, it had been a surprise, he still had  _ hope _ . And it hurt all the more for it. He doesn’t want Emma to live through that. He can’t tell if it’s more selfish to tell her or not to tell her. He never got to say goodbye, to his dad, to Liam, to Milah. He just imagines all of the things he would have said, what he would have done differently. He knows the thoughts that linger when you don’t get to say goodbye. 

Emma’s lost so much, he doesn’t want to be accessory to her losing more. 

Her fingers move clumsily across the twine, chewed nails with the colored stain on them chipped and almost gone. Her hair glows golden in the fire, and the glow of it casts alluring shaddows down the deep scooping neckline of her chemise. 

Emma Swan is perhaps the most interesting, beautiful, infuriating person he’s ever met and he’s met a lot of people over the centuries. Beauties to rival Greek goddesses, philosophers and poets. But there’s just something about her that he can’t get over. The alcohol burns up his wounded pride at her earlier refutal. 

She’s never flat out rejected him like that before, not when he was being genuine. Sure she’s shot down his flirting, his innuendo and frivolous offers. But when they were being honest with one another, when they were having a moment between them with no one else around, she’s yet to reject him so coldly. Perhaps he’s been reading the situation wrong, or perhaps she’s overwhelmed. 

He knows the various ways women say no and has always respected that, and he got her message. Not now. Not today. There are other things to focus on. 

She catches him staring, and instantly, with her green eyes darkened by the dim campfire, he remembers her red stained face from Storybrooke. He can’t let the Prince take her goodbyes from her. Maybe he can give them a little more time together too. 

But there’s a challenge in her eyes when she looks at him and he’ll be damned if he’s the one that’s going to look away first. He longs for them to have a moment alone so he can talk to her without her defenses sky-high, to pick her brain, perhaps lower those walls just a bit and talk to Emma. He longs to find out what lies behind those walls because he’s drawn to it in every moment like a moth to a flame. 

There’s also the attraction there, but that’s something they’ve both been aware of since they met, there’s no denying that one. Her lingering gaze, however, is heavy with it, and the dark part of him, brought out by the drink in his system, wants to cross the expanse between them and do something about it. But he already made a move tonight and was refuted. It’s her move next. 

Tensions are high tonight, the Queen and Snow snip at each other, even he makes an asinine acknowledgement to Snow’s plan and she brushes him off coldly. He hopes they do find a way to contact the boy, for their sakes and his. None of them will be productive upset like this. 

If the Prince weren’t on death’s door anyway he’d punch the man in the face. As he walks behind him, the man droning on with a self righteous speech, the darker corners of his mind conjure up the various ways he knows how to kill him. 

“You’re not here out of any nobility, you’re here for Emma.” The Prince spits back at him. Perhaps the man needs an outlet for his frustration at the uncontrollable situation he’s found himself in, but Killian’s getting tired of being the punching bag. 

The prince’s arrogance truly reaches new heights with that one. What does he know? How can he presume to understand Killian’s intentions. Hell, Killian doesn’t understand his own intentions half the time, but does the man think he’s chasing a fling? Is he under some false delusion that he would do all of this, betray everything he’s known for a quick lay with a woman? He knows nothing. 

Yes, he has a connection with Emma and she asked him to be a part of this, she asked for his help. But it was Baelfire he turned the ship around for, and his son, Henry, that keeps him going. He let the damn Crocodile onto his ship for fuck’s sake, and the Prince presumes it’s all so he can get a quick fuck out of Emma when it’s all done? He’s paying his penance for Baelfire, for Milah. He’s going to get Henry home to his mother and then he’s done. This is his last act, and maybe there’s a part of him that hopes it will tip the scale just a bit when he meets his maker on the other side. 

But Killian doesn’t have to explain himself to the Prince. 

It’s too easy to manipulate the man. 

“You ready to be a hero?” David asks. 

It’s a little jarring, how like Liam the man is. Killian learned the hard way that with people like Liam, too strong willed for their own good, telling them the truth isn’t always the best course of action. Pan told them the truth,  _ he _ had told Liam how he truly felt about the dreamshade, his own damn brother and his hubris was still stronger than his sense. Injected the poison straight into his damn veins. 

No, they’re fucking stubborn to their deaths, people like them, as if they have something to prove constantly. That’s the only way he’s going to get him up to Dead Man’s Peak, make him think it’s some grand heroic gesture, stroke his ego. Emma may have gotten her father’s stubbornness, but she got some of her mother’s sensibility, something David sorely lacks. 

“We’ve known each a very long time,  _ Killian _ .” Why is it that the only person to still call him by his given name is someone he despises? Pan and He played one another until Killian lost, he wasn’t willing to play that game again. Working for Pan was never an option. To submit himself at the boy’s feet, to bare his neck and let the demon sink his teeth in? No, it was hard enough to rid himself of Pan the first time.

“You’re good at surviving.” Pan says. 

He ignores the tremor in his lungs and the sake of his fingers. Pain flares up in old wounds, scars feel like they bleed as if fresh, running in rivulets down his back. Wounds inflicted, then healed, then inflicted again. Yes. He’s good at surviving. He’s always been good at surviving, but Pan made damn sure of that. 

“Remember the last time you didn’t listen to me?” Pan’s breath is hot, rancid on his face. He can feel the boy’s magic tingling up from the ground, winding around his ankles, reminding him of its presence. Which time? When Liam didn’t listen and died in his arms? When he didn’t listen and let Liam leave the island? When Pan strung him up for “insubordination” and pushed him to death just to bring him back and start all over? When--

“Have a drink. You know it always helps you think.”

He hasn’t stepped foot up here since Liam. The view of the sea is just as lovely as it was the last time, and the air just as thick with Dreamshade’s scent as it was then too. For a moment, he’s young again ( _ it’s been so long _ ) looking at his brother, pleading with him. Phantom pains where his left hand once was burn up his arm. The cove, the air in there was thick with magic and dreamshade and he never wanted to step foot in this place again. He spent centuries in Neverland and never came back. But he came here to save the Prince. The pompous stubborn Prince. 

“I didn’t do it for you, mate.” he gives the man a wink, a wry grin. 

He didn’t know why he did it. Yes, he didn’t want Emma to suffer the loss of her father, didn’t want Snow to lose the man she loved. But he didn’t want to be responsible for the Prince’s death if there were a way to prevent it. There was nothing to gain in the Prince’s death, and everything to lose if he got the man up here and he perished. 

Perhaps...Perhaps the Prince reminded him  _ too much _ of his brother. And over the centuries, through sleepless nights, an ocean of dreaming different ways he could have saved Liam, what  _ he  _ could have done differently, he knew that he would have given his brother the water all over again if it meant that he got to hold him one last time. He would have done everything he could to save Liam. 

But maybe, beyond all of that. Maybe he just wanted to do the right thing this time. 

He can’t get Liam out of his mind on the trek back. David gives him Liam’s emblem back and he presses it back into the inner pocket of his duster jacket. Every day here seems to hurt in more and more unexpected ways. He feels raw, ravaged by time they make it back to camp. The Prince was rather cheerful on the journey, chattering on about Snow and a trip to Lake Nostos and asking Hook about the island, how he knew about the water. Killian brushed off his answers, deflected the man back to speaking of his wife and their life back in the Enchanted Forest. Liam also liked to hear himself talk.

He didn’t ask for praise for what he did, he didn’t want it. His neck crawls and he can’t stay steady on his feet under the weight of the Prince’s gaze. The offer of the flask, a thank you and an apology all in one. (“ _ Killian I should've listened to you _ .” were some of Liam’s last words.) 

“I thought he deserved a little credit.”

He’s very tired. Emma chooses now, of all moments to speak and he averts his gaze. He’s too tired to play emotional combat with her, too fragile to handle another honest rejection. He can’t handle her judgement at the moment and all he wants is for her to return the flask so he can lay down in peace but--

“You really save his life?” Emma asks, her tone open. More so than it was the last time he attempted to speak with her. 

“That surprises you?” He says. She turns towards him, holds the flask out and waits for him to cross to her. An olive branch, it seems. He should refute her advances, not accept her peace offering but...but… He walks up to her, behind a line of foliage that separates them from the camp and accepts his flask back. Maybe without her family around, she won’t try so hard to keep those walls up, he’s not strong enough to fight them today. 

“You and David aren’t exactly, how do you say it,  _ mates. _ ” 

“Doesn’t mean I’d leave your father to perish on this island.” He says, perhaps too much of his hurt seeping into the tone. He may be  _ nothing but a pirate _ but he’s not cruel. 

And in one of the  _ moments _ that he finds himself longing for when faced with her cold shoulder, or rejection, she’s open with him. She knows he wouldn’t leave her father, she believes him, she  _ thanks  _ him. The crawl on the back of his neck returns, he instinctively scratches behind his ear, he feels too warm in his coat and his heart's too big for his chest so instinct kicks in and..

“Perhaps gratitude is in order now.” This. This is safe. He’ll flirt, she’ll leave, he doesn’t have to deal with these emotions. They’re too much for him right now. She wasn’t in the mood earlier, he’s not in the mood now. He taps his lips and  _ leers _ at her. He’s had better deflections. 

But she doesn’t back down this time. 

What changed?

“Yea. That’s what the “thank you” was for.” she says through a reluctant smile. She’s looking at him. He wonders how much of the charade she sees through. 

“Is that all your father’s life is worth to you?” He presses further, moving closer into her space. She doesn’t back down. She doesn’t step away, roll her eyes, walk away. She stands toe-to-toe with him. He hasn’t been this close to her since the beanstalk, and he lets his heavy thoughts drift away because  _ this  _ is a new development. One more piece in the Emma Swan puzzle. 

“Please,” she rolls her eyes, a smile ghosting the corners of her lips. “You couldn’t handle it.”

“Perhaps you’re the one that couldn’t handle i _ t. _ ” He can’t help the smile at the proximity, at that tension heavy between them. 

“Perhaps you’re the one that couldn’t handle i _ t. _ ” He steps forward with a smile, accepting the challenge of the gauntlet thrown at his feet. Captain Hook never turns down a challenge. (Perhaps that's his own portion of the stubborn gene that ran in his brother.) The tension between them is palpable, he can taste it on his tongue, feel the electricity in the air between them, his fingers itch for hers, her eyes dart between his own.

This is the moment. The moment she turns her back, walks away. The moment the tension gets to be too much for her, when it glances over old wounds and she runs and he’s left chasing her coat tails. He’s standing at the line between them, just sticking his toes over her boundaries to see how far he can push her. He’ll edge her boundaries but if she draws a line in the sand she’s got to be the one to cross it, he can’t make that move for her. 

But oh. 

Oh.

She crashes their mouths together, pulls him in by the collar of his jacket and keeps him there with a commanding hand on the back of his head. Her fingers tighten in his hair and gods  _ gods _ he’s imagined her mouth, the taste of her. His hand hovers at the back of her head and gods he wants to touch her, he  _ wants _ ...His hand curves against her skull and she leans into him, twisting her jaw down to better capture his mouth.

Desire burns in the pit of his stomach, searing up his sternum and gods he wants to devour her, wants her to devour him. He’d be happy to just lay prone while she  _ takes _ if it means she won’t run off on him. And she’s doing just as much, two hands fisted in his lapels, guiding him where she wants him while his hand hovers uselessly along the curve of her back. She sweeps her tongue into his mouth, surging up against him on her toes and all he can do is follow her, chase her mouth wherever she may go. 

She staggers back to the flats of her feet, gripping him tight by the lapels, heaving breaths against his face. They breathe together, falling into her space his forehead pressed to hers, nose tucked into her cheek. He would be happy just like this, just sharing this space with her, breathing her in, holding her. Where he lingers on her back, his thumb grazes the bare skin of her arm, her breath fans out against his face and  _ gods _ . 

“That was, um…” he mutters helplessly, drawn back to her like a magnet. They both angle out, and he waits for her to lean forward and capture his mouth again, he leans in, her breath is warm against his lips--

“A one time thing.” she says, and the words sting his skin where they meet. He’s suddenly cold when she pulls away, turning her back on him before he can even process what has happened. 

“Don’t follow me.” She says with her back to him, “Wait five minutes. Go get some firewood or something.”

“As you wish.”

Killian doesn’t return to camp, not for a while. He’s not far from camp, probably a dozen feet or so, but secluded enough that he feels alone. Nobody will be coming after him anyway. He pulls Liam’s ring out, the metal still warm from his skin. He rubs his thumb along the familiar engravings on the side, across the ruby stone. 

He lets himself miss his brother. For just a moment, alone for the first time in days, he lets himself miss him. Everything here, being back here, is so fucking hard. Everything here is a reminder. The fruit, the smell of the air, the taste of the water, the sneaking creeping feeling of Neverland’s magic in every piece of dirt and grass. 

The sounds. Gods the sounds. He spent so long here, heard the lost boys cry every night for what he now knows was centuries, but the first night they were back was jarring. It’s achingly familiar, equally haunting. Not everyone hears it, the Prince and Snow certainly don’t seem to hear it, neither does the Queen, but he knows Emma does. Knows it calls to her like it calls to him. He sees it in the bags under her eyes, the tension in her shoulders when they wake. He wishes he could ease it for her, to help some way with her suffering. 

She’s gone through so much recently with Henry, Baelfire, the tension with her parents and Pan’s games. She doesn’t show it though, not most of the time, and there’s an odd sense of admiration and pity he feels at watching it happen. She’s holding herself together for Henry, but he sees the cracks and fissures there. She’s an odd creature, made of rough exteriors and bristing words, her need for distance, her fear. But there’s also such warmth in her. Her fierce strength for her son, her parents, even the Queen. The way she fights  _ for _ them, even when she’s fighting them. She’s so strong for everyone else, but who is strong for her? 

He sees the cracks in her armor, the wounds that lie beneath. But instead of wanting to dissect her pain for some advantage he just...he wants to make it better. He doesn’t want to add salt to the wounds, but instead a cool salve. He sees these wounds that her family is blind to, suffering calls to suffering, and all he wants to do is ease hers. He can’t bring Baelfire back, can’t take back the hurt that made her like this, but he can help save Henry. 

He hasn’t felt this way since...since Milah.

The thought terrifies him. 

Of course she’s beautiful as well, just his luck really. But that’s not it. It’s not her cheekbones or her jaw that draw him in, not her green eyes or hair the color of sunlight. ( _ Not her strong arms and shoulders and calloused hands.)  _ It’s just...all of her. Her cold shoulders and bristling tone, her beauty, her strength, the vulnerability she tries so hard to hide, all of it is so inherently  _ Emma _ . 

Fuck. 

He should ignore this, push the feelings away. He can handle the unresolved tension, the attraction. But he can’t ignore how his heart beats a little faster when the moonlight hits her face just right, or the way he twitches to steady her when she stumbles on the forest floor. He wishes he didn’t know the taste of her kiss because now that he knows what he’s missing he can’t ignore that either. 

When did this happen? Hell. 

The ring is cooling beneath his fingers, and he longs for his brother. Gods he went to Dead Man’s Peak and all he’s thinking of is Emma’s kiss. He misses his brother fiercely, and David’s stubborn attitude and kind words today have only heightened it. He’d been so young and foolish then, as if Pan was asking for monetary payment. But Liam let his ego get the better of him, Killian did everything he could for his brother, how could he have known?

Was Liam thankful for the last few hours they had together?

He’s spent centuries mourning his brother. The pain will ease. He pours a shot of rum out for the man, then takes a swig himself. Rum usually helps to ease that pain. 

“A one-handed pirate with a drinking problem.” Pan calls him. He’s not wrong.

His heart stops when Pan says his name. “Baelfire. Neal” Like its nothing, like he gets to utter that name after everything they’ve been through. Pan doesn’t count on that. In all of his games, all of his scheming, that’s the thing Pan can never seem to calculate correctly. Something selfless.

“So I’ll leave it up to you. To tell her or not. Let’s see what kind of man you  _ really _ are.” the imp says before fading back into the foliage, as if not saving Baelfire would ever be a choice for him. All of this was for Bae, everything he’s done, leaving Storybrooke, coming back to this damn island has all been to pay his penance to the boy.

He could keep it to himself, sure. But he’s betrayed Bae once before and never forgave himself for it. He won’t betray him now to protect whatever he may feel for Emma. He can’t do that to him. It was never an option. 

Echo Cave. 

Damn Echo Cave. 

Gods if it were anyone else, if it were anyone sitting on the other side of that cave, he wouldn’t be here. When half his crew was here they weren’t able to get them out. Nobody runs to a life of piracy without some secrets they’re running from, they all had secrets they were unwilling to share. But it’s  _ Baelfire.  _ It’s Milah’s son and he’s there and he’s alive and now he has to play right into Pan’s fucking games to get him back. 

“Let’s see what kind of man you really are.” Pan taunted him. 

He runs the bridge of his nose and turns around to bare his neck to Emma and her parents and the words are coming from his mouth before he can stop them. And it’s not until the words leave his lips that the reality of them set in, that the guilt begins to eat at him. The memory of Milah burns hot like betrayal in the back of his mind, but gods maybe he really could love again. He’s not in love with Emma, he knows that, but...but maybe he wants to be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Koryandr](https://koryandr.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.


	13. Emma - Going Home

Neal’s maybe alive and, like every other morsel of happiness in her life it all comes crashing back down. She doesn’t believe Mary Margaret, not at first, but one glance at Hook and he’s got those soft eyes again and she can see the hurt there and the honestly. 

Oh god. 

No. 

She should be happy, right? She should be ecstatic, jumping for joy. She’s been mourning the man’s death for just under a week, trudging through the fucking jungle, looking at his childhood  _ home _ . She should be happy, but all she can feel is the way her stomach sinks and dread spreads from her chest. 

“You owe it to yourself.” Mary Margaret tells her, with stupid fucking  _ hope _ in her eyes. Her own mother is happier about the possibility of Neal being alive than she is. But No. Her mom doesn’t understand. She wishes she had her mother’s pure worldview, could look at the sky and only see the sun, not the dark clouds that linger. It pisses her off sometimes, how fucking optimistic they are, like the real world doesn’t exist for them sometimes. 

Then she sees him. She sees him and it hurts just as much as it did back in New York when she found him again. Will seeing him ever stop hurting? 

Then Hook is...well she’s not sure. Because now he’s using words like love and talking about her and...and it’s just so much to deal with on top of everything else. But in a small way it’s a relief. She knows his intentions now in a tangible way she didn’t before. But...she’s known he’s interested in her. It’s not like it’s a big secret...right?

But Mary Margaret wants a new baby and that fucking stings too. She can’t even call them ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ on a good day and yet here she is, getting upset because they’re replacing her. It really does hurt though, the idea of them moving on. There’s something small in her, that cries that they’re  _ hers _ and she hasn’t even gotten to know them yet and...but David’s stuck here. ( _ And that explains why they’ve been acting so strange _ .)

Then she tells Neal everything she hasn’t been able to tell herself and how fucking horrible it is of her but she tells him and it feels better than holding it in. 

She’s going to have a fucking aneurism before they get off this island.

It’s odd being alone with the two of them. Hook who has...some kind of feelings for her, and Neal who “won’t stop fighting” for her. Emma’s learned to always trust her gut, but when it comes to these two she’s never sure which way is up. She knows Neal, has known him for over a decade but...but there’s so much she doesn’t know about him. She’s learned so much over the last few months that she’s not sure if she ever really knew him at all. And she certainly doesn’t know how to trust him after all of this. 

Meanwhile there’s Hook, sleazy pirate Hook who left her for dead in a cell in the goddamn Enchanted Forest a few months ago. She’s felt like she could trust him since the beginning but went against her gut instinct the first time. Now? Now he’s the one she trusts at her back, when he tells her something is poisonous she trusts that, when he tells her he has feelings for her it fucking terrifies her and she wants to run in the opposite direction but he’s telling the truth. They understand each other. 

Somehow Neal is the unknown variable here. He wants to save Henry just like her, but she doesn’t  _ know _ him like she knows Hook. From the moment she met Hook she understood his bad side and now she knows his good side. With Neal? He feels like a fucking stranger to her half the time. She knows Hook always keeps an ear out for lost boys at their back, she knows he’ll catch anything if it gets close to them, knows he’ll draw her back if she gets too close to any dreamshade or wild animals. 

She doesn’t know what Neal would do. 

He’s thrown her to the wolves once before. There’s love between them, twisted and dark and mangled but it’s there. But he loved her last time too and look where that got her. 

Hook’s not perfect, far from it, but she knows him, and now it feels like she never even knew Neal in the first place.

“Maybe he offered you a deal.” Emma suggests. She knows Pan wouldn’t have given that information away freely, it would have come with strings attached, just like the map. But whatever the strings were, he didn’t bite. He chose Neal over whatever Pan offered. 

Hmm.

“Does that surprise you?” He asks.

“You are a pirate.” She offers with a rueful smile and a chuckle.

“Aye, that I am.” He says, sounding a bit strained and then he looks down and chuckles himself, but his sounds far more self-deprecating than she was expecting. “But I also believe in good form.” He steps closer to her and his voice drops into something low and intimate that makes her stomach crawl. 

“So, when I win your heart, Emma,” He begins, and god the way he breathes her name makes hair on the back of her neck stand up, “and I  _ will _ win it. It will not be because of any trickery. It will be because you want me.” For a moment everything else fades away and all that she hears is her heart beating erratically and she can smell the sea on his skin and taste the rum on his tongue and he’s staring at her so intently, so  _ earnestly _ , she can’t look away. She struggled to ignore him when he was trying to seduce her but this? It’s possibly the most romantic thing she’s ever fucking heard and she couldn’t be more terrified. 

“This is not a contest, Hook.” She says, finally blinking away the moment and looking away to collect herself. 

“Isn't it?” he presses, “You're gonna have to choose, Emma. You realize that, don't you? Because neither one of us is gonna give up.”

“The only thing I have to choose is the best way to get my son back.” She says, remembering Henry’s face in that little mirror like the cold water she needs to snap herself out of this. 

“And you will.” He replies.

“You think so?” she can’t help but ask. Hook’s not typically an optimist, he’s her realist, the one that’s level headed, thinks like her. 

“I have yet to see you fail.” and there’s not a fucking waver of insincerity in his demeanor. “And when you do succeed well, that's when the fun begins.” 

It’s dumb, she’s not a fucking object, but her stomach swoops a bit at his words. 

Then they’re in the hollow and acting like jackasses again over a fucking lighter but the shaddow hurls Hook against the tree and she’s shouting for him before she knows what’s happening. Neal is yanked away too and she bunches down into the corner trying to light the damn candle but it’s not working and--

Anger wasn’t working earlier but maybe...

(“ _ Stop thinking! Conjuring magic is not an intellectual endeavor. It's emotion. You must ask yourself, "why am I doing this?" "Who am I protecting?" Feel it.”) _

She closes her eyes, tunes out the whirlwind around her and just thinks about them, their screams, the waver in Henry’s voice. She’s not losing anyone, she’s the fucking savior and she’ll protect them.

And she does.

And it fucking feels good, she lit the candle and now Pan’s shadow rocks around inside of the stupid magic coconut. 

“How did you do that?” Neal asks her.

“Regina.” She breathes out once she’s on her knees and has breath back in her lungs.

“She’s teaching you magic?” He asks again and now she knows that tone in his voice. The weary fearful one he had back in the bar in New York. 

“Yea, I guess she is.” Emma says, still panting as Hook stumbles to his feet with a groan. Neal’s up as well, but he’s just standing there looking at her dumbstruck. Part of her feels a bit self conscious under his gaze, at his tone, like what she was doing was wrong. 

Hook steps forward to help her up but she shakes her head and gets to her feet on her own, clutching the coconut to her chest, exerting pressure against the shadow raging inside. Neal steps forward and she holds it while he spins twine around it to secure it closed. 

“You’re brilliant, Swan.” Hook says, touching the curve of her back with his brace and smiling at her. 

“Thanks.” She says, glancing up at Neal who averts his gaze, but mutters some agreement under his breath. 

She tells Hook and Neal to put their pissing match to good use and collect food and water for the night, and Tinkerbelle runs off with the two of them. She’s able to show Mary Margaret and David her new firestarter abilities as they make camp. There seems to be at least a temporary truce between them, but Mary Margaret excuses herself to go to the bathroom for a bit and Emma’s left at the camp with David.

“So,” she says, coming to sit down next to him in front of the fire. 

“Look Emma, I’m sorry that-” David begins

“No.” Emma shakes her head, “No, I get it.”

“You do?” 

“Yea.” Emma nods, brushing her hair back and fucking cursing herself for not bringing a hair tie...or a better shirt because it’s getting pretty frigid. “You should have told us, especially Mary Margaret but you thought you were protecting us, I get it.” 

“Still.” David grabs her hand and looks her in the eye. “You’re my daughter, and I love you, and I’m sorry.” 

Resisting the urge to pull away, to deflect, she grabs his hand back and leans over, putting her head on his shoulder. They sit like that for a bit and the exhaustion begins to set in her bones, they didn’t sleep the night before, spent it in Echo cave, and this feels like it’s been the longest two days of her life. 

“I thought there was no cure for dreamshade.” She asks, pulling away and wrapping her arms around herself to starve out the chill. 

“There’s not.” David says, but he gets up and returns a moment later with a blanket, draping it across her shoulders. 

“Thanks. But obviously there’s some sort of cure or you’d be dead by now.” Emma asks. 

“It was Hook.” David says, glancing around the perimeter of the camp, “Practically twisted my arm to get me to it, but he did it anyway.”

“Even though you were acting like a dick?” Emma smiles at him, and gets a genuine laugh out of her father. 

“Yes. Even then.” David looks at the fire, “He knew right away I had been hit, tried to get me to tell you guys for days. Finally he dropped a hint about the sextant and I fell for it and he used it to lure me up to Dead Man’s Peak to get to this water.”

“How’d he know it was there?” 

“Um, I guess he and his brother were here when he was younger, his brother got poisoned with it and Pan showed him the water.” David says, wringing his hands a bit. “Pan didn’t bother to tell him the caveat about dying when you leave, so you can imagine how that one turned out.”

“Hell.” Emma grabs the blanket tighter. No wonder he didn’t want to come back here. 

An hour passes and everyone’s returned and they’re all sitting around the fire, passing some fruit back and forth. Hook’s opening coconuts again, and Neal is passing around an empty coconut shell full of berries for everyone to pick at. 

“Hey, do we have any more of those orange mango things?” Emma asks Hook where he sits across from her. 

He reaches into his satchel and pulls out a couple of them, tossing them across the fire towards her. “There you are, love.”

She should really discourage the pet names. She doesn’t. 

Instead she just leans back against the log behind her and uses her knife to cut open the mango, passing a few bites to her parents as she does so. Hook, Tinkerbelle and Neal chat on the other side of the circle, and it feels a bit odd to have the divide between her and Hook after spending the last week together. Neal sits next to her, Hook on the other side of Mary Margaret and he shares slices of coconut with her mother as he peels them from his shell. 

He seems to have lost a lot here. The little she knows so far, his crew in Echo and his brother to dreamshade, tells her more than she needs to know. He’s handling it well though. He’s a survivor, like her. Of course it seems like he’s fine, but she’s seen the soft eyes, his broken tone a few times.

His touch at her elbow is immediately overwhelming, and she almost doesn’t want to look at his face. She hates tearful goodbyes, hates crying in front of other people. She hates this. She doesn’t want to leave any of them. 

“That’s quite the vessel you captain there, Swan.” She can’t help but laugh a bit at the facade. It’s comforting, familiar, but god she’s never going to see those eyes and the emotion that emerge from behind them again. She doesn’t have a picture to remember him by (any of them), she can’t look him up on the internet or call him. 

His eyes haven’t been Captain Hook’s in a long time. Whatever his name is, his real name (he’s told her before she just can’t remember) that’s who she sees in the soft curve of his eyes, the upward swell of his brows, the heaviness in his gaze. 

(“ _ When I win your heart, and I will.” _ )

This isn’t them though, not here, not in front of the others. His heaviest words come when they’re alone,  _ they _ happen around corners and without prying eyes. No in front of her parents, Henry, Neal. He doesn’t let his walls down around others, and she certainly doesn’t either. 

They’ve been allies, almost friends, but there was the potential for something more. Now she’ll never get to find out. She can’t handle him throwing anything more at her, can’t handle  _ feelings _ , can’t handle a kiss, can’t handle tears from him because she’s barely holding her own back.

“There's not a day will go by I won't think of you.” He says in a voice dipped low enough for just them, quiet, and dripping with everything she can’t bring herself to say. He knows, he has to know. He’s gotten so good at finding her boundaries. When has anyone else been able to do that? Tears burn in her eyes, but she stands up a little straighter. 

_ (“There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by that I don’t regret having left you.” Neal told her. ) _

“Good.” A challenge. 

(“ _ Perhaps you’re the one that couldn’t handle it.” _ )

He likes a challenge. 

The temptation is there, he glances at her lips, she glances at his, but he steps away from her. He lets her go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Koryandr](https://koryandr.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.


	14. Killian - Going Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very short lil bit for Killian here before we go into The Missing Year

The things he wants to tell her. He’s practiced prose in his head on the way over, written soliloquies in his mind, imagined the impassioned speech he would give. But when it comes down to it, all he can do is gently touch her elbow as she heads towards the little yellow carriage. Everything freezes in his throat when he sees her face: lips and cheeks twitching with barely concealed emotion, eyes red from unshed years. 

She’s not his, they’re not a  _ them _ but he wishes they could have been. He let himself want again, and it hurt, but gods he wouldn’t give it up for anything. He’s lost so much and lived long enough to know that it’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. Standing there, saying goodbyes, he loves her, but he could have loved her so much more, and maybe she could have loved him too. He’s lived for three centuries and still it seems he never has enough time. 

“That’s quite a vessel you captain there, Swan.” He says instead, and her face breaks into a smile before quickly crumbling. She’s on the verge of tears, he wants to tell her everything but...but she doesn’t need that right now. She knows how he feels, he’s said it before. But gods he’ll miss her. 

“There’s not a day will go by that I won’t think of you.” He says gently. She raises her chin and blinks back the tears threatening her. 

“Good.” she replies evenly. It’s a challenge and he can’t help but grin. 

( _ “Please. You couldn’t handle it.” _ )

He glances at her lips, pulled up in a grin of her own, he can’t help it, but this isn’t the time, not in front of her friends and family. He promised himself the next time he was with her it would be because she chose him, and tearful goodbyes on the eve of a curse don’t leave much to be chosen. 

Backing away from her is harder than he expects. Watching her drive across the town line doesn’t hurt as much, knowing she’s riding off towards a happy ending. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Koryandr](https://koryandr.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.


	15. Killian - The Missing Year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suppose I should give a TW for mention of self-harm in this one, it's not graphic or overt but just in case.

He didn’t expect to see the little princess again. He feels equal parts relieved and shameful at seeing her with her prince, clad in a pure white cloak. She looks well though. At first, the Princess grabs Snow’s hand with both of hers and sends him a heated loathful look.

“Why are you with him?” she hisses to Snow, but Snow just pats the woman’s hands with one of her own gently. 

“It’s alright, he’s on our side this time.”

“We cannot trust him, he--” she looks back at her Prince then drops her voice, “he ripped my heart out last time.”

“He’s different now.” Snow smiles and glances over her shoulder, beckoning for Killian to step up onto the dias next to her. The Princess eyes him wearily, but Snow keeps her commanding grip on the girl’s wrist. Killian steps up next to Snow and gives a polite bow.

“M’lady, it’s a pleasure to see you again.” He smiles. 

“Hook.” she practically spits. “I can’t say the same.”

“I imagine not.” He nods, “In my defense, you lot did leave me stranded at the top of a beanstalk with a giant and Cora was going to kill me.” He finishes with a grin and a wry shrug. 

“You _stole_ my heart.” Aurora seethes. 

“Don’t take it personal love, I have that effect on many women.” Killian grins. “Besides, I gave it back, didn’t I?”

“Alright, enough.” Snow rolls her eyes and tugs Killian back gently by the arm. The two talk some more, and he fades into the background, lingering next to David, who looks decidedly more handsome and regal in clothing from this realm. 

“What’s with the blood, mate?” Killian asks David later when they’re going through the supplies Aurora’s footmen brought from the castle. David looks down at his shirt in confusion for a minute before sighing. 

“This is what I was wearing when the curse hit.” He plucks the fabric from his chest, the blood coming off on his fingers still wet but the skin beneath it is healed.

“What were you doing when the curse hit?” Killian asks, sitting down and taking a sip from his flask. He’s not typically a talker, but he misses Emma already and maybe there’s just enough of her father in her that he can look at the Prince and miss her less. 

David sets down some of the rations and turns to look at Killian, an appraising look on his face. “Sorry, I thought everyone knew.” David shakes his head with a humorless laugh and looks down at his hands, “Snow went into labor right when the curse was hitting, they barely cut the umbilical cord before I had to take Emma and put her in the wardrobe.”

“What wardrobe?”

David rolls his eyes but it’s good natured. “It was prophesied that Emma would break the curse, Gipetto was able to make a wardrobe that could take one person in it to another realm - or so we thought - the plan was to send Snow through when she was pregnant so she could raise Emma in the Land Without Magic until Emma was old enough to break the curse. Snow went into labor early, and we had no choice but to put Emma in there alone, give her the best chance at a good life even if it wasn’t with us.”

David’s voice has gone flat, “Black Knights were in the castle, I held Emma in one arm and fended them off with the other.” He gestures to his shirt, “It didn’t work in my favor but I got her in the wardrobe before they got me, that’s all that mattered”

“So Emma went through as a babe alone?” Killian asks quietly.

David nods silently before taking a deep breath. “I put my newborn daughter in a wardrobe and the next time I see her we’re the same age. We missed everything.” David looks up at the sky and blinks back tears, but his voice is heavy with emotion. “But at least now we know she’s happy. She’s got Henry, she’ll be happy even if it’s not with us.”

Killian feels his own throat swell with emotion and purses his lips to starve it off. The Prince’s heartbreak is palpable, and he feels bad for them, but knowing that Emma grew up in that realm all alone, feeling unloved and abandoned…

 _At least she’s happy._ Maybe that’d be enough. 

David practically toples over from his crouched position when Killian throws the flask at his chest. He grabs the thing and seems to be on the verge of protesting when he sees what it is. Looking at the Prince, he sees the realization dawn in his eyes and the man grins, falling back to sit on his ass and take a long drink from the flask.

“Hell, that’s strong.” David caps it and tosses it back.

“Pirate.” Killian smirks, earning a similar grin from David. 

At least she’s happy. He could live with that, but staring at David and seeing Emma in the color of his hair, Emma’s nose was another story. To hear her laugh in his voice, see her chin on Snow’s face and the kindness Emma tries so hard to hide on the royal is too much.

He can live without her. But being around everything that reminds him of her would be too much. 

He catches Aurora perched alone against a pillar of the dias, hand resting on the gentle swell of her stomach and staring off in the direction of her prince. She seems upset, and he can’t help but wonder over towards her. 

“M’lady?” He begins gently so as not to spook her. She rolls her head over towards him with little more than a glare.

“What?” She asks curtly.

“I hear congratulations are in order?” He offers, suddenly feeling a little odd under her gaze. 

“Don’t pretend you care now.” Aurora rolls her eyes.

He should walk away, leave her to her devices. He knows why he did what he did, his life was on the line and it was the best way to get what he needed. 

“For what it’s worth,” He begins quietly, stepping closer towards her despite the weary glance she sends him, “I do apologize. I’m not proud of what I did.” He keeps her gaze as he says it but after the words are out of his mouth he looks away, scratching the back of his neck. 

“Hook.” She says dryly and when he looks up at her, her gaze has softened and she’s almost examining him. ( _He remembers her too trusting nature and how easy it was to get her trust.)_ “What changed?” She asks.

“Don’t know what you mean, love.” He grins at her.

“Sure.” Aurora rolls her eyes, but with a small smile this time. “Mulan said you saved my heart from the portal and gave it back so...apology accepted.”

Killian holds his hand out for hers, and when she offers it, he kisses the back of her hand with a wink. 

“Always a pleasure, Princess.”

He tells himself it’ll be easy to go back to his old life. 

It’s not. 

He told himself when they left for Neverland he’d be done, that he was going to help Bae by saving Henry and then Captain Hook would be no more. He didn’t have anything left to live for, afterall. He avenged Liam’s death one sunken royal ship at a time, and avenging Milah’s, the little that he did get to do, left him empty inside. He helped Baelfire, repaid his debt. What was left for him?

Logically, he should just off himself and get it over with, but...but that doesn't feel right either. He’ll just have to go back to what he knows, find the only thing left for him in this godforsaken land. 

He doesn’t find Jolly at the first port he goes to, and traveling down the coastline a bit she’s nowhere to be seen. He makes a detour inland to collect from a stash of gold he’s got nearby, something he hid away long ago. He takes until gold overfills his pockets and then buys an entire tavern a round. 

Three months pass before he finds his crew. 

He really does think of her every day. 

He sees her in women at bars, a flash of blonde hair, a woman in a doublet weilding a sword. He thinks of her when he sees a woman and her son at the market, a woman slapping a man who gets too frisky at the tavern. 

It’s ridiculous. He tries to drown it out with rum. The more he’s pulled towards her the more upset he gets. He doesn’t want this pain. The more he’s drawn to her light the more he clings to the dark.

There’s a pretty blonde in a Tavern that catches his eye. Before Emma, he wasn’t really into blondes, dark hair and sun-kissed skin were more his forte, but with her on his mind the woman is all he can look at half a bottle in. She’s beautiful, with laugh lines on her face and expressive warm blue eyes. A tailor’s daughter, she tells him, with soft hands and skirts more expensive than her social status calls for. She’s laughter and smiles (and nothing like Emma) but with the haze of alcohol he can delude himself that she’d be a good substitute, just for a night. 

She’s ready, and willing, and has her hand on his leg and smells like jasmine. They’re pressed against one another on a darkening street and he’s got her against the outer wall of the tavern, hand in her hair. But when he kisses her, she’s pliant. She has a hand on the back of his head but she’s just holding on, she’s not leading him, she’s just along for the ride. 

He leaves her with a stuttered apology and her own frustrated tears.

He finds the crew.

It’s easier to pretend with them.

 _“Captain Hook has gone soft”_ he hears in whispered conversations.

Perhaps they’re right. 

Captain Hook was cruel and vicious and left him empty. But it hurt so much to be Killian Jones. 

He dreams of her occasionally. Sometimes it’s lewd and he wakes up hard and guilty. 

He imagines her spread out on his sheets, blonde hair spread like sunlight and pupils blown wide. He knows what her mouth tastes like, but he dreams of her writing for him, wet down to her thighs, fingers in her, bringing her to the edge with his tongue and thumb. She tastes like a sun-warmed sea, and her thighs tremble around his ears, her fingers scratch at his skull. She moans his name, his real name, and it’s everything to him.

He imagines her over him, wrist bound above his head, her body bare and flushed above him. She digs her fingers into his chest, twisting in his body hair, nails scraping along his skin. She clings to his hip bones and circles her hips above him. She rides him until he’s panting and moaning her name and completely at her mercy. 

But most of the time? It’s ridiculously innocent. 

They’re sitting on the deck of Jolly talking, she tells him about Henry. 

They’re in Neverland and she’s eating the mangoes she liked so much, sticky fruit juice rolling down her jaw. 

He’s having dinner with her and her parents and Henry and Bae. 

Ariel finds him and he clings to the last vestiges of Captain Hook left in his blood and gods the guilt eats at him but Jolly is all he fucking has. He’s lost so much, she’s all he has and he desperately wants to help Ariel, has never been good at saying no to a woman in tears, but Jolly is _his._

_“You’re selfish and you’re heartless. And that is what will bring you wasted years and endless torment. I feel sorry for you. You’ll never be happy.”_

Like shooting Belle, he doesn’t feel good about it afterwards. 

_“And what about when that’s not enough? What will you do then?”_ Emma had asked him once about his revenge. 

Jolly has to be enough. 

He’s got more ink on his body than he remembers most of the time, swallows decorate his right shoulder blade, an Anchor for Liam along his left hip, Milah’s heart on his wrist. There’s more ink on his body, a compass and the sea, a star chart, a map. On the outside of his left forearm, always hidden by his brace, there’s a “JS” written in cude faded black ink that always makes his back burn when he sees it. 

On his right thigh is a collection of tally marks. Like the ones he made in his bunk as a lad, like Neal’s on his wall in the cave. There’s a hundred or so marks along the skin there, half are black lines etched into his skin, the other half raised scars made with a swift swipe from his hook. One for every crew member he lost. Not the ones he dispatched for breaking the code, or ones that left, but the ones that were under his command. Lives _he_ lost. He’s got a notebook in the Jolly with each of their names on it. 

He’s drunk off his feet when he stumbles upon a woman in the back of a tavern with a tool kit. He hands over a few silver coins and wakes up in the morning with raw and irritated skin. Just there, on the inside of his left elbow is a small black Swan. 

He rolls his eyes when he sees it. Always so damn dramatic. 

It’s ridiculous. He barely knew the woman and yet, months later, he still thinks of her every day. Still shys away from the affections of other women, still hears her judgement when they steal, can picture the roll of her eyes when he says something particularly lewd. 

He finally admits it to himself, one night sitting in the captain’s quarters of Jolly. He’s tipsy and going through some of his souvenirs when he sees the hair brush. After the debacle with the mermaid back in Neverland when she had jumped off of the ship, he had lent her Milah’s hair brush, something he typically kept locked away in the safe hidden in his quarters where only he had the key. 

It’s a pretty, silver ornate thing. He had bought it in some port shortly after she left with them. She barely had the clothes on her back when she came to the ship, and at their first stop he stopped off to buy her clothes and supplies. (Truly too many supplies if you asked any of the crew, but he didn’t ask.) He had been desperate to find anything that made her less sad and she threw the damn brush at him when he gave it to her, some speech about how she couldn’t be bought and it was too much. 

But he draws it out of the safe and sees blonde hair clinging to the bristles and feels like he could fucking cry because sometimes it feels like none of that was real. He buries himself in the bottle and holds the damn brush and admits he loves her. Surprisingly, it doesn’t feel like he’s spitting on Milah’s grave when he does it. 

He wonders if he’s just fated to lose everything he loves. 

_At least she’s happy._

The little white dove lands on his wheel and his world comes to a screeching haul. He collects the little dove, hands the wheel off and takes the little bird below deck. He feeds the bird some dried fruit and tries to decipher the messy scrawl. 

“Find Emma. Memory potion. Bring her home.”

His heart stops for a moment, but then he takes a breath and feels a swell of drive for purpose unlike anything he’s felt in over a year. 

They make port shortly after, and while the crew is off on shore leave, he sees the purple smoke in the distance, and pulls Jolly from the port. He spreads his hand across the wheel and prays for her to go as fast as she can. The familiar tingle of Jolly tingling under his palm reverberates to his bones and he breathes with her. 

He thanks her profusely when they’re safe from the curse. He allows himself a moment to hope her parents are well. Perhaps they’re the ones that sent the dove, they knew what was coming. But Emma. _Emma._ He has to get her home. 

He can’t remember the last time he felt this driven. 

If a new curse has been cast that means transportation between the realms is possible once more. 

Misthaven is cloaked in the curse and off limits, so he does what Captain Hook does best. He puts his ear to the ground. He was a smuggler before. When he’s looking for information, he trades the hook for his hand, opens some more fastenings in his shirt and turns on the charm. 

He learned something valuable when he was still identified by that JS written on his arm. He had a “pretty face” and when you have nothing to your name, sex is a kind of power nobody can take from you. 

He flirts with anyone and everyone, he lets himself lose at cards, makes himself seem smaller. He hangs out in dark corners of taverns, puts out feelers with other smugglers, meets with old contacts and makes new connections. 

He’s at it for _weeks_ until he accidentally stumbles into Blackbeard. Fucking Blackbeard. He’s on the way out of a tavern when the asshole shoulder checks him. 

“Oooh, Captain Hook.” Blackbeard drawls, “I knew you’d gone soft, but hell, you’re not even wearing the hook anymore.”

Pride burns dangerous in him and he spins on Blackbeard with a snide grin. 

“Blackbeard, I’d hoped you’d perished. How unfortunate I was wrong.” Killian grins brighter when a fraction of Balckbeard’s smirk disappears. 

It’s later that night, sitting in his cabin that he remembers an offer made long ago, one he shot down vehemently. One he wouldn’t even consider at the time. 

No. He couldn’t. There had to be another way. 

It’s in the morning that Jolly is creaking oddly, her boards groaning under the gentle sway in port. 

“What is it, love?” He asks her gently, pressing a hand to the walls of his cabin. He feels the enchantment in her rattle uneasily. She’s not pleased with him. The weight of his choice feels like a rock in his chest, heavy and oppressive and gods he wants to be rid of it. It’s the same weight he felt when he chose her over Ariel’s prince. 

Guilt. 

“I can’t.” Killian says, laying his palm flat and pressing his forehead to her. She sighs discontent under his fingers. Liam died in this room. Milah died on the deck. This was, no, _is his home_. This is the only home he’s ever known, the only family he has left in this world. He’s been with her for centuries, he just got her back. He couldn't. His entire life, the only part of it worth living, has happened on these decks. 

But that vial sits in his windowsill, blue glass casting a glow in the room under sunlight and he can’t ignore it. It’s the smallest thing here but it’s presence is oppressive. 

Find Emma. It asked him. Whoever it was, they _trusted_ him to find Emma. They needed him to find her, she _needed_ him. 

He pours himself a glass and sits in the corner of his bunk, back pressed to two of the walls there. 

He imagines that look in her eye when she brushed against the tally marks in Bae’s cave. The quality her features would take on when it was just the two of them. The way he could see through the cracks in her walls just a bit, how she couldn’t help but open up to him and he her. 

_“It might be stupid, it might be crazy but we’re doing it. So...you can join us and be a part of something, or you can do what you do best and be alone.”_

_“Maybe I was in love once.”_

Emma, growing up alone, no parents, no family.

_“Ah, but you don't want to abandon him the way you were abandoned.”_

Whatever caused such a haunted look in her eye when she spoke of Baelfire. 

_“I can't take a chance that I'm wrong about you.”_

When he first met her, how uncomfortable she was even touching her parents, the way she lashed out, her permanent fight or flight response. The careful way he has to toe her boundaries, her _fear_ , like a caged animal whose been hurt one too many times. 

She may not feel the same but gods he loves her. 

_“Isn’t true love more important than a few planks of wood and a sail?”_

No. He couldn’t let her be wrong. She trusted him. He can’t leave her. And the thought is an ounce of clarity in the malstrom of his life, like sailing into the eye of the storm. It’s just as right as the breath in his lungs, the sea on his skin, the blood in his veins. He couldn’t leave her any more than he could have left Milah to the pain of her old life, anymore than he could have not given Liam the water. 

_“You’re selfish and you’re heartless. And that is what will bring you wasted years and endless torment. I feel sorry for you. You’ll never be happy.”_

Captian Hook has been so fucking selfish for so long. 

The thought of giving Jolly up is so damn painful but Killian couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t do this. 

It’s like waking from a dream, but one that left him stained with the blood of others. He thinks about the things he’s done, the innocent men he’s killed in his time, the families he’s destroyed, and the thought churns his stomach. Captain Hook has done things that would have Killian Jones shaking and weak. He’s tried to be Captain Hook again, every day for an entire year, but the moniker feels more and more distant from him, an identity he once fully embodied that now slips through his fingers like sand. 

He wonders when he stopped feeling like Captain Hook and more like Killian again? 

“I’m so sorry, love.” Killian leans his head back to abate the tears that threaten, but Jolly hums in contentment behind his back. She understands.

He sits down at a game of cards Blackbeard is playing, hook in hand, satchel strung over his shoulders. His valuables, the little sentiment he has left is sitting in the satchel across his shoulders, the last of his gold and jewelry sits heavy in a coin purse there. Everything he owns, everything that is _home_ to him is strung across his shoulders. Milah’s portrait, her hairbrush, Liam’s pocket watch, the sextant, his rings, a change of clothes and some other odds and ends. His life is packed up in one bag. 

_Find Emma_.

He deals in with some odd jewels and plays his crew members out of their own until it’s just him and Blackbeard left at the table. 

“You offered me a deal once,” Killian begins, dealing himself in. 

“I’ve offered many deals in my time, Hook. What is it?” Blackbeard is fuzzy around the edges from his whiskey. 

“You once offered to trade me a magic bean.” Killian puts forward a handful of his winnings, lays his cards face down on the table and meets eyes with Blackbeard. Blackbeard looks at him oddly before letting out a bark of a laugh. 

“That was decades ago, Hook.”

“Does the offer stand?” 

The amusement drops from Blackbeard's face at that. “You remember what I asked for, don’t you?” 

“Yes.”

“You call yourself a pirate and yet you’re willing to trade _her_ for a damn bean?” Blackbeard scoffs. “I don’t do deals with mad men.”

“I’m not mad.” Killian hisses. “You’re a pirate without a bloody ship, my offer stands just this once, and you are truly in no position to make a counter offer.” 

Blackbeard sets his cars down and folds his arms across his chest. He evaluates Hook, and Killian holds his gaze steady, shoulders not betraying the weight he feels settling over them. “The deal stands.” Blackbeard says finally. 

“Do you have one?” 

“Yes.” 

“I want proof.” Killian sits up a bit straighter. 

The man pulls one of the translucent beans from the brim of his hat, flashes it for a moment and then hides it again. 

“Why now?” Blackbeard asks, bean clasped in his hand as they stand on her decks. “You damned that mermaid’s man to hell a few months ago when you took this ship back from me. Why trade her now?”

Killian runs a hand along her railing, taking in the feel of her enchantment against his fingers one last time. 

“Someone I love is trapped alone in another realm and I need to help her.” He says, unable to tear his hand from Jolly. 

“You’re trading your ship for a bloody _woman?”_ Blackbeard hisses with disdain. “You don’t deserve this ship anyway. Take the damn thing.”

 _‘Goodbye, love.’_ he thinks pressing his hand to her wood one last time. She sings something bittersweet to him. He turns and grabs the bean offered out to him, rolling the it around in his fingers. He can feel the magic in it. It’s real. 

“Just one caveat to this little arrangement,” He says, stepping into Blackbeard's space, touching toes, “If I find out, you’ve broken a single board on this ship, deal is off and I’ll hang you from the bowsprit myself. Are we clear?”

“Get your things and get off _my_ ship, Hook.” Blackbeard spits back

He forgot how _loud_ this realm is. Emma, he just thought of Emma and the damn thing spit him out in the middle of the night on some street. He glances up at the tall buildings. It’s similar to that city where he followed the Crocodile, New York, but he wasn’t sure. There are several buildings around. The metal carriages are loud and fast, the people walking, the noises in the distance. It’s all a little overwhelming but he’s been here before and he’s bloody Captain Hook, there hasn’t been a realm he hasn’t been able to figure out. 

If the bean brought him here, that means Emma is nearby, and given the hour it seems her dwelling must be nearby. He waits around for hours, until well after the sun has risen on the city, before he sees her. He almost misses it, after all he’s been twitching every time he so much as saw a blonde head of hair - and bloody hell there were so many blondes - but it’s not the shock of her hair against the landscape that alerts him. 

He _hears_ her voice and it’s a shock to the system and despite his lack of sleep he’s instantly awake. She’s across the street from him, exiting through a green gate with a bag slung over her shoulder and Henry clinging to her hand. She kisses the lad on the forehead, adjusts the loud red sack strung on his back, and then grabs his hand and walks down the street. He considers following her but...but that may be too suspicious and if he loses her in town he may not remember the location of her dwelling. 

“Excuse me, miss.” Killian asks, heading into a nearby store. There’s a young girl working the counter, a pretty dark skinned girl barely past maturity. He leans on the counter between them, flashing his most charming smile at the girl. Her cheeks flush. 

“How can I help you?” She asks, stepping back just a bit wearily. Change of tactic. 

“I’m afraid I find myself a bit lost, love. I’m from out of town, here to meet my wife’s family.” He laughs a bit and rubs the back of his neck. “I was hoping you may have a map?” Her shoulders relax just a bit and she tries to smother a sweet smile. 

Young girl, charming smile, having a wife makes him approachable, nonthreatening. 

“Where’s your phone?” She asks, but reaches across the counter to grab a folded bundle of paper.

“I’m afraid I misplaced it.” He laughs and ducks his head, “Apologies, love, I’m a bit of a mess today, nervous about meeting the parents.” 

“Awe.” She says, through flushed cheeks and a bashful smile, “Well I’m sure I could help you out.”

She’s gullible. It’s sweet. 

The lass gives him the map and a writing utensil (“here, take my pen”) free of charge. The island is not as large as he imagined it last time, and navigation appears to be relatively simple. (“All of Manhattan is a grid system, so it’s pretty easy to find your way around once you get the hang of it.”)

Killian marks the position of Emma’s apartment on his map with the ‘pen.’ Last time he was here, he was able to tail them, but this time he’s on his own. He remembers the name of the location he was at last time, and with assistance from the lass, he heads towards Wooster Street. 

Baelfire’s dwelling is easy to find once he’s near, “Casidy” is written on the silver boxes in the foyer. He ambles about down there until another resident opens the gate and he’s able to slip through and get up the stairs. It’s dark out, and Bae’s room seems to be left untouched. He can camp here until he’s able to sort things out with Emma. 

He finds some provisions in the cabinets, and after searching a dozen different hidden compartments, he’s able to locate some of this realm’s currency (he recognizes it from dealings at Widow Lucas’ establishment) and decides he will pay Baelfire back with gold once he sees the man. 

Henry’s a problem. He’s only got one vial of memory potion but they’ll both have to remember. Perhaps? He’s certain he loves her, would it even work like that? After all, what does _true love_ even mean? It’s a risk, if it works she’ll likely slap him, if it doesn’t...well that’s not just toeing the line that’s taking a leap across it.

He passes through the gate the next morning as a collection of children scream and run out onto the street. There’s heavy foot traffic, so he slips by relatively unnoticed. There’s a directory of names in the foyer downstairs on little silver boxes and he finds “Swan” in her scribbled handwriting fairly fast. 311. 

She’s perfect: Tousled hair, pale face and wearing night clothes. His heart stops for just a moment and she’s so beautiful, how did he forget how beautiful she was? The downward curve of her mouth, her furrowed brow. She looks at him like a stranger and he doesn't even register it because she’s _here_ and she’s alive and real and gods it’s been so long he almost forgot. 

He’s lived three centuries and somehow this past year has been one of the longest of his life. 

He sees her and the pain of losing Jolly burns fresh in his blood but seeing her is like a fresh gasp of air after being submerged in the sea. An ever present itch settles in his skin, his lungs feel lighter. 

He steps into her dwelling without even thinking, and even when she puts a defensive hand up he can’t be bothered to care because she’s _here_. And it’s like meeting her all over again, he sees through all of her walls but she throws them up anyway and she’s distrustful and--

Okay, so the kiss was a bad idea, he knew that. Too brief to remember much other than the pain in his balls, the tingle on his lips and the feeling of her hair in his hand. 

She looks...gods she looks _sinful_. It’s the shortest tightest leather tunic he’s ever seen and she’s got black tights and shoes with heels taller than his hook. He’s sitting at the bar in the establishment and practically chokes on his damn drink.

She kisses that man and smiles and laughs and he has a moment where dread washes over him. She seems happy. She was happy with Henry, she’s smiling and open and happy with this git and he’s never heard her laugh like that. Is he doing the right thing?

 _Find Emma_. 

He could leave. He could go back to Storybrooke, try to help the Charmings himself. They didn’t have to take Emma from her happy ending. She could keep this life, happy with some man and her son, and live peacefully. That’s what he kept telling himself, what David told him, the one thing that kept him going: At least she’s happy.

But can she really be happy living a lie? If she knew, if she knew that her family was cursed, likely suffering, could she just remain sitting there holding that man’s hand? No. His Emma would want to know, she valued trust and honesty over everything. She loves her family more than anything, she wouldn’t want to be without them if she had the choice. She spent her whole life chasing them. 

Emma would want to know. 

She seems miserable that night. She spends the hour after the “flying fucking monkey” furiously packing, throwing pants and sweaters at him where he sits on her bed. He nurses a glass of rum ( _She keeps rum in her home_ ) as she rants and raves, throwing everything from bundled socks at him to belts that smack harshly against his chest. 

She stops herself at one point and looks back at him.

“What are you doing?” she asks incredulously. 

“What?” he replies.

“Are you _folding_ my clothes?” She practically hisses at him. A little dumbfounded, he sets the white sweater she pitched at him into the trunk sitting half open on the bed, neatly folded.

“You were throwing them at me, love. Was I just supposed to sit here and take it?” He leans back against the headboard gesturing broadly. He’d ditched his duster and waist coat in her dining room, (“ _shoes off at the door_ ”) and even just in his open shirt the heat from the alcohol has him warm. 

She opens her mouth to speak, but pauses. She runs her eyes over him for a moment before her face runs red and she turns back to her wardrobe, hair hiding her face from him. He’s not quite sure what it was, but he smiles at the almost bashful way she looked away from him. 

He folds up Henry’s clothes into a smaller trunk later. 

They end the night on her couch, both hazy with rum and lounging lazily. 

“God.” She moans, dropping her head against the back of her couch. 

“The name’s Hook, love.” He chides, laughing when she retaliates by pushing half heartedly at his shoulder. 

“No, you have a different name.” She shakes her head, “It’s um...It’s...fuck what is it?” 

“Killian.” He tells her, pushing down the sour feeling in his gut that she didn’t even know his name. He’s in love with this woman and she doesn’t even know his name. He laughs disbelievingly, but lolls his head to the side and suddenly they’re too close and-

“Killian Jones.” He says and they’re so close his voice is a breath against her face. Her body is turned towards him, head sidewise against the back of the couch, hair spilling gently across the back. 

She’s so beautiful it hurts. 

“I knew that.” She says, grinning. 

“Sure, love. Sure.” He rolls his eyes at her. Pushing down the urge to rest his hand on her thigh exposed by her lounge “shorts,” he rests his hand over the lump of Liam’s ring beneath his shirt instead. 

She’s so close that he gets lost in her eyes until he realizes she’s no longer looking him in the eye, but she’s staring down at his lips. He glances at hers as well, at the way her pink tongue peeks out to wet her lips, how her breath seems a little heavier. It’d be so easy to just lean forward, brush his lips against hers, really _taste_ her again. 

“He asked me to marry him.” she says quietly into the space between them, looking back to him with wet eyes.

This time he does reach out to her, but it’s only to set his hand over the back of hers. A comforting gesture. 

“I loved him, and you know what he said to me?” She says, looking just past his shoulder now, “He said “I actually kinda liked you.””

She laughs disparagingly, huffing a breath and rolling her eyes. “What’s more pathetic? Neal loving me but leaving me anyway, or Walsh playing me and never loving me in the first place?”

Something dark and fierce storms in him. He longs to see this man one more time, run him through, make him suffer for _hurting_ her. How a man could be hers and not cherish that above all else is beyond him. She has such a big heart, and it’s protected by fixed barriers and leather jackets and cold shoulders and brisk words. She let that _man_ in through her defenses and he _kinda liked_ her. 

“It’s not pathetic.” Killian says, reaching up to wipe a stray tear from her cheek. He thinks about the black swan etched into the crook of his arm, how she didn’t even know his damn name and was in love with another man and yet seeing her for the first time was still like salvation. “It’s not pathetic to love, Emma.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Koryandr](https://koryandr.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.


	16. Emma - The Missing Year

Everything just feels...off. On their drive back from Maine she feels the hairs along her arm tingle and she’s restless and can’t settle down. She turns some classic rock on, turns it up and rolls the windows down until her head clears a bit. 

They have to make a pit stop for Lunch and she checks her bank account to find that the insurance company had already deposited the settlement in there (so many zeroes), so she lets Henry get whatever he wants. But everything still feels off. She can’t put her finger on it. It’s almost like the sense she gets when someone is lying to her, that alarm bell that goes off in the back of her head, but it’s not quite as loud. 

It doesn’t go away. 

She picks up the keys for the new apartment, the one they picked out before going on their little road trip up the coastline, and Henry immediately runs in to claim his bedroom, even though it’s empty. The only damn things they have are the clothes on their backs and a folder of birth certificates and other documents that she kept in her safety deposit box back in Boston. 

Picking furniture out with Henry is fun for the first few stores, then he gets bored and starts complaining about everything from the wood grain in the table to the color of pots and pans she tries to buy. 

_ “Mom you can’t buy everything in black.” _

_ “Actually I can.” _

_ “No please, these are more fun.” _

_ “Henry.” _

_ “Pleeeease!” _

They camp out in the big open living room for the first few nights with comforters bought from Target and they watch Disney movies on the new laptop she had to buy. Their new life slowly comes together. She doesn’t enroll Henry in school until his bed has been delivered, but after that she ships him off to school with an empty backpack and his lucky scarf while she tries to get their lives back together. 

She’s unpacking her groceries when she pulls the cinnamon out and that sense of  _ wrong _ comes back over her and she’s in tears on her kitchen floor for no fucking reason. 

They settle into New York well. They get to discover a world of new restaurants and foods, Henry finds a new comic shop and Emma’s got to get her new license to work in New York. Thankfully she got a ridiculous settlement from the insurance company for her apartment and her savings is well padded, so she’s not too worried about her checkbook at the moment. The License takes a bit to get complete and registered, so she makes connections with the agency she’s going to work for (“‘Big Apple Bail Bonds’? Really?”) and tries to put the finishing touches on their new life here. Dispute that feeling of  _ wrong _ creeping up every now and then, she feels good. It’s a fresh start for her and Henry, no ghosts lingering around the corner. 

She has to buy an entirely new wardrobe for her and the kid. Which, at first, is fine because they’re both pretty low maintenance. Then she gets to work and remembers she needs blouses and slacks and dresses for traps and running shoes and she spends a couple hundred dollars on that. 

Her new clothes feel...good though. Last year she couldn't afford to indulge like this, but the part of her she’s always tried to ignore really likes the tights and skirts and blouses. She  _ likes _ wearing heels and looking pretty. It’s an indulgence she hasn’t given into much in her life. As a teen she wore whatever she could steal, and after prison, she struggled as a single mother. Now? Henry’s older and she’s  _ stable _ and they’re building a home and she’s going to wear a flowery dress if she damn well pleases. 

There’s some clothes that are completely out of her style but catch her eye anyway: dresses with sweetheart necklines in soft colors and cardigans. She doesn’t buy any of them but they’re...familiar. 

There’s one dress she buys that she probably otherwise wouldn’t have. It’s a little number she finds on the rack, just long enough to be decent, short enough to make her legs look good and made of black leather. She runs her fingers over it and there’s something about it, something about the texture, the sex appeal of it that has her spending too much money on it. 

It feels right. 

Emma  _ dreams _ . She’s always had vivid dreams but these dreams are something else. 

Sometimes it’s something gentle and sweet, a woman carding her fingers through Emma’s hair, a warm hug, the feeling of  _ safety _ . There’s a hand warm on the back of her head, the smell of forest and rain and moonlight and she wakes up mourning the comfort of her dreams. 

She sees faces in her dreams she doesn’t remember, a man with shining eyes and blonde hair that feels safe, a woman with a pixie cut and the kindest smile she’s ever seen. There’s Henry, a woman with red-streaked hair, and a man with brown curls and sad eyes that leaves her in tears in the morning.

Sometimes she dreams of Neal and it hurts. 

But sometimes she dreams of  _ him _ . He’s not like the blonde man or the curly haired one, he’s...he’s like a livewire. Sometimes all it is, is the shine of his eyes in the moonlight, a wry grin, a handsome smile. (And he’s so handsome.) But other times the dreams are decidedly not wholesome. 

She dreams herself above him, below him, pressed up against a wall. His breath hot on her face, his hair clutched in her fingers. She dreams of his hand between her legs, his face there teasing her until she wakes up wet and uncomfortable and  _ unsatisfied _ . He breathes her name and she feels it down to her toes, her fingers curl against dark chest hair, cold rings press against her face.

Henry’s got this video game he likes to play where he plays as a medieval prince. He’s got a castle and there’s a princess and the prince is also a knight (which really just seems like a rip off of King Arthur but whatever.) He likes to play in the living room and sometimes she likes to just curl up on the other side of the couch and watch him play. His little knight/prince wears a red jacket and has a sweep of blonde hair and rides a horse and she likes to watch the stupid little cut scenes while he plays. There’s just something about it.

There’s things she can’t quite remember the details on, but knows happened. Every detail of Henry is crystal clear in her mind, from how colicy he was as a baby to the first drawing he brought home to her, to every kid that made him cry. She remembers the birth, she remembers his first words, his first steps. 

But it’s the things about  _ her _ that are fuzzy. Like, she can’t quite remember the last couple places they’ve lived, but she’s always been a drifter so she chucks it up to faulty memory. She can’t quite remember her last few places of employment, or the last time she went to the doctor, or why she named her son Henry. 

One of the first few days in their new apartment she looks at the boot laces tied around her wrist, the ones that cover up one of her young and dumb stupid tattoos, and it makes her heart  _ ache. _ But she can’t remember why. She takes the thing off to shower, puts it back on in the morning, rinse and repeat and she doesn’t know why. It’s just like her circlet necklace (and the old Swan keychain she wore for too long), it’s a part of her, it is part of her every day routine but she has no idea where it came from. Only that every time she thinks about it too hard she gets a headache.

There’s also a scar along her left palm that she doesn’t remember getting. She’s littered with scars, one on her left eye from the first fistfight she got into, one across her heart from a close encounter with a window when she was robbing an old house, chunks of skin missing from her knees and elbows has been all too common. An assortment of scars and phantom pains that give her harsh flashbacks to burning cigarettes and the menacing shine of a belt buckle under warm light.

But she doesn’t remember this one. It’s a little jagged, and she can think of a million different scenarios where she could have gotten it, but none of them feel quite right. The memory of it isn’t painful like the bootlaces or the faint raised lines on her back, but it always just feels like a memory too far out of reach. 

Sometimes she’ll catch herself idly running her fingers along it, trying to search for memories that don’t seem to exist. It usually just leaves her frustrated and with a migraine. 

Henry breaks one of the shitty IKEA end tables she bought when they moved in (with a game of Just Dance that got out of hand) so she finds a furniture shop near her bonds agency and orders an end table from the worker there that smiles too hard at her. Of course he asks her out when she comes to pick it up a couple weeks later. 

He’s fucking persistent, so she reluctantly agrees to lunch. 

Walsh is...nice. 

He doesn’t mind that she’s got a teenage boy at home, he’s handsome and nice and buys her dinner at fancy restaurants. He’s got a steady job, he’s got an apartment in a nice part of town, and he keeps coming back. He doesn’t know how to pick a lock, doesn’t know how to keep a secret to save his life, and he doesn’t steal cars on the side. He buys her dinner instead of using her to skip out on the check, he brings her chocolates and flowers sometimes just for the hell of it and his promises aren’t empty. 

He doesn’t feel  _ right _ , but nothing in New York has quite felt  _ right _ so maybe it’s just her. Her stupid superpower is on the fritz. 

She’s at the corner store getting booze for her and juice for Henry for their Friday night ‘party.’ Their party consists of watching some shitty action flick, ordering pizza, and eating junk food, but she loves any opportunity to be with him. She’s gonna savor it while he’s young enough to not be embarrassed to hang out with her. Panic seizes her for just a moment when she imagines a time that he’s not going to want to hang out with her anymore, but she pushes it down. It’s every mother’s fear, she supposes. 

Typically Emma is a Whiskey girl, and she grabs a bottle of Jameson but another bottle catches her eye. She’s really not a rum person, but for some reason she itches to buy it. The bottle of Captain Morgan makes her trip more expensive than she was planning on, but she gets it home and pours it into a glass (and pours Henry a glass of Sparkling Grape Juice) and sits down for their movie night. 

Some Batman movie plays on the TV as she nurses her rum. The aftertaste of it is...it feels familiar. Every drink she takes makes her feel like she’s getting one step closer to a memory that’s just out of reach but she just gets a little tipsy before she’s able to grab onto it. 

After Henry goes to bed, she has another glass, licks the taste of it off of her lips and feels a burning desire sweep through her stomach. 

She finds a pretty white cuckoo clock in Walsh’s shop that calls to her for some reason. When she looks at it it eases that sense of  _ wrong _ in her gut and she can breathe a little easier. 

“Should I be jealous of that clock, Em?” Walsh asks, walking up next to her and shrugging his jacket on. 

“When did you guys get this clock?”

“Oh I’m not sure. Why do you like it?” He smiles at her. 

“Oh no I-”

“It’s okay to want it, Em. It’s nice.” Walsh grins down at her. 

“I don’t want the damn clock.” Emma rolls her eyes. Walsh grabs her face gently with both hands and presses a chaste kiss to her mouth. 

“Whatever you say, dear.”

The clock arrives on her doorstep that weekend, and she’ll stare at it in the mornings when Henry’s off for school and breathe a little easier.

Tyler is one of her Skips. He’s handsome and charming and his girlfriend Anna used the last of her savings account to bail him out of jail so he could keep working to care for their child and he bounced on her. Emma hates these men most. Maybe that’s why Big Apple keeps giving her these cases. 

She finds him easily, fake dating profile, a photo of her in a scantily clad dress at a bar, alluring profile. Hook line and sinker. 

She wears something red, short, and skin tight and hopes he’s not a runner. 

She meets him in front of the restaurant and immediately cuffs him, he struggles a bit, elbows her in the ribs, but she gets him cuffed and in the back of her car before he can do much damage. 

“C’mon baby, just uncuff me and you can do anything you want to me.” He leers at her from the backseat. 

“Did you really just call me baby?” She rolls her eyes, buckling up and plugging in the GPS for the precinct he needs to be delivered to. 

“You got all dressed up, I wouldn’t want to waste it.” He leans forward, towards her, putting his chin on the passenger seat. 

“The only thing wasted here is your girlfriend’s time and money.” She tells him. 

“You know, baby, I prefer to do other activities when cuffed by a beautiful woman.” He leans back in his seat and smirks at her and something in her fucking  _ recoils _ at his words. There’s a memory there trying to swim to the surface but she can’t quite find it and everything feels  _ wrong _ . 

Henry gets sick. Really sick. He’s got bronchitis and pneumonia and he’s on a handful of antibiotics and coughing up blood and miserable and there’s nothing she can do about it and she hates it. She feeds him soup and stays home with him when she can. Most days he just lays on the couch and watches Disney movies in between sleeping, but sometimes he wants her to read to him or he wants to play his video games. 

Well into the second week of this, she feeds him soup and sits on the couch with him and he puts Snow White in the DVD player.

“Snow White? That’s the worst one.” Emma smiles as he lays down with his head in her lap. 

“I like it.” His voice is raspy and he doesn’t elaborate. Emma helps lay a quilt over him and then sits back and runs her fingers through his hair. He’s getting so big. 

“You’re gonna be a hopeless romantic when you’re older, kid.” She tells him, leaning down to press a kiss to his too-warm forehead. “Don’t know where you get it from.” 

Emma’s not sure why she cries during the movie. 

It’s a Wednesday and an off day for School and Henry and wants to walk around a bit, so they pack up some lunches and head off to Central Park. They’ve been here a dozen times, but every time Henry still looks around with a grin, reliving his favorite movie moments as they walk. 

_ “-oh and that’s the bridge from Spider-Man 3--” _

_ “Remember where the prince jumped off of this in Enchanted, Mom?” _

_ “Oh, Mom, this is where they all met at the end of Avengers when they sent Loki home.” _

Emma ruffles his hair and smiles and grins at his antics. It’s moments like these, when she gets to run her fingers through his hair and hug him that it’s just visceral how much she loves him, how much she would do for him. She would do anything for Henry. Henry is the first thing in her life that was  _ hers _ and nobody can take away. It’s days like these when she looks at him and thanks the universe for making her hold him on that table, for making her weak enough not to give him up, but strong enough to keep him. 

They eat lunch together on the lip of the fountain. It’s a weekday so the park is busy, but not overly crowded with tourists. 

There’s a young couple sitting on the other side of the fountain from them. The guys have their hands clasped together and they’re leaning into each other’s space, foreheads together as they grin and giggle. They can’t be much older than eighteen, but watching them with their goofy smiles and cheek kisses strikes an odd chord with her. 

She has Walsh, they’re happy. He picks her up from work and makes them dinner and helps Henry with his homework (because the kid is too smart and she never even finished high school.) He’s kind and fine in bed and he’s just good. He’s good. 

She tells him she loves him and for some reason the idea of saying that isn’t scary because he’s safe. He doesn’t pry into her past or push her too far. Then again, they’ve only known each other for a few months, there’s no way he could wrap his mind around all of her baggage. He doesn’t get why she gets clingy after sex or that she doesn’t quite enjoy the restaurants he does, but that’s fine. Relationships aren’t perfect. 

She loves him. 

But does she love him like that?

Does she love him like butterfly kisses and smiles so big you have to hide your face. She’s never looked at him and been overwhelmed with emotion, never been so ridiculously into him she couldn’t control herself. He’s never made her blush down to her toes, never made her feel giddy like a teenager. 

This is what adult relationships are supposed to be though, right? Giggles and eskimo kisses are for little kids, she had that once and look where it got her. This is something mature and adult, it’s not going to be a pounding heart and flushed cheeks when he looks at her. This is right, isn’t it? The love she had for Neal ended so badly, it had to be wrong, and this is so different. It has to be right. 

_ (She deliberately ignores that underlying itch beneath her skin that she’s had since they moved here telling her everything is  _ wrong _.) _

“Here, Mom.” Henry is pressing a penny into her palm. 

“What’s this for?” 

“Make a wish.” The kid grins at her and then puts his back to the fountain. He shuts his eyes, presses the coin over his heart, then tosses it over his shoulder. He turns to her and has the brightest, happiest look on his face and then her heart skips a beat and  _ love _ rushes through her chest. Maybe she doesn’t need Walsh or Neal or anyone to give her that feeling. Maybe Henry is all she needs. 

“Your turn.” He goads her until she copies his movements.

“ _ I hope he knows how loved he is _ .” She thinks as she presses the coin over her heart. 

They’ve packed up and are on the subway heading back to the apartment, his hand in hers when she asks him.

“What did you wish for, Henry?” 

He looks over at her, and his smile widens slowly and his eyes are bright again. “I can’t tell you, then it won’t come true.” 

“Not even a hint?” 

“Nope.” He tugs on her hand playfully. 

When they get back to the apartment they kick their shoes off and settle in to watch some superhero cartoon Henry likes. He sits right next to her on the couch (which sometimes he says he’s too old for and it breaks her heart) and relaxes into her side until she sets her arm around his shoulder and leans back. 

“I love you, Mom.” He says, tilting his head back to look up at her. 

“I love you too, sweetie.” She says, kissing the crown of his head and pressing her cheek there trying to starve off the tears that threaten her

“Swan.” He says and his face lights up like a fucking Christmas tree. She’s, admittedly, very distracted because it’s nine in the morning and some guy that looks like he’s been ripped from the cover of GQ is standing on her doorstep. (Granted, he’s dressed like he’s from some medieval times shit, but whatever.) 

For just a moment her mouth ticks up because his  _ smile _ is infectious, but he looks at her like he knows her and for some reason terror instantly shoots down through every part of her body. 

He doesn’t feel wrong. In fact, standing in front of her he’s one of the only things (like Henry) that feels right and that sets her on fucking edge because no. Her instincts are on the fritz and she’s confused because he’s a stranger trying to walk into her apartment and talking about her  _ parents _ and he should feel wrong. He should feel wrong but he doesn’t, he feels like the scar on her hand and the clock in her apartment and the back of her neck tingles and goosebumps shoot down her spine and her head kind of hurts. 

He tells her he’s an old friend and her instinct is to believe him but she  _ knows _ she doesn’t know him. 

Instinct kicks in and she knees him in the balls and shoves him out of her apartment before her brain even registers that he kissed her and  _ “What the hell are you doing?” _

Her heart is going to jump out of her chest and there’s adrenaline down to her fingers and she shuts the door in his face because  _ what the fuck _ . She sits back down to eat with Henry, resolving to wipe this entire encounter from her memory. But she can’t get over the fact that her lips and the skin around her mouth still tingle from the kiss and the back of her neck is heavy from where his hand rested. 

The experience of a stranger assaulting her in her doorway was jarring, but it was the fact that it all felt so  _ familiar _ that has her reeling.

After everything, after memory potions and flying monkeys, Hook sits on her bed as she furiously packs their bags. At some point, she glances at him, open shirt, flushed cheeks, shining blue eyes, and the memory of one of her  _ dreams _ of them rolling around in that bed washes over her and her face burns. 

She gets a little drunk on her rum ( _ god she’s never been a rum drinker why did she even buy this?) _ and he sits patiently with her while she tries not to cry over the absolute clusterfuck of her life. She kicks him out a little bit before Henry’s due home and he heads back to Neal’s for the night with express instructions to be over at 9:00AM so they can get on the road.

Calling him Killian in front of Henry is all sorts of weird and uncomfortable. She’s never even said his name before then, and it feels strange on her tongue. She tried to get him to wear Neal’s clothes, but he refused, so Henry probably just thinks he’s a fucking crazy person. 

Henry and Hook is a combination she doesn't know how to handle. Henry wants to play twenty questions the moment they get in the car, and Killian tries to answer everything as thoroughly as he can, but Emma has to inject half truths to save some semblance of a cover story (“We knew each other back in Portland, Henry.”) Turns out, he’s much more interested in Hook’s oddities, like his leather outfit (“I just find it more comfortable, lad”) and the accent (“Grew up on the sea, I wouldn’t say I’m from anywhere in particular.” “His parents are from England, Henry.”) and the weird way he talks, (“I’ve picked up some colorful language in my travels.”) 

Henry must get his tact from her, because at some point he asks Hook “How’d you lose your hand.” She admonishes him, but Hook simply replies “Crocodile ate it.” 

They stop off for lunch and gas somewhere in Connecticut, and Hook gets out of the car and looks around like he’s just as fascinated with their surroundings as Henry is with him. He looks off at the Interstate and the cars zipping past like it’s something he’s never seen before. Although, she quickly remembers he  _ hasn’t _ seen anything like it before. 

There’s a Subway attached to the gas station and Emma sends Henry and Hook in with her card to grab lunch. It only takes her a few minutes, but when she gets inside, they’re sitting at a table and Henry is digging into his food while Hook sits across from him looking uncomfortable (and out of place against the mass manufactured furniture and artificial lighting.)

“Henry, you were supposed to get Killian lunch too.” Emma says. Henry looks up at her with his mouth full and looking offended. He opens his mouth to speak, but Hook holds a hand up to him to stop him from spitting food everywhere.

“Don’t berate the lad, love. I’m just not feeling hungry at the moment.” Hook smiles at her and it makes the back of her neck tingle. He’s lying. 

(She tries to bite down the absolute giddy feeling that her instincts are working again and everything doesn’t feel so wrong anymore.)

“Henry just keep...eating, don’t talk to strangers. Come up with me while I order, Killian?” She swipes her card from the table and Hook stands up to follow her towards the front of the store. 

“What’s wrong?” She asks him as they wait for the woman in front of them to place her order. 

“Nothing’s wrong, Swan. Don’t fret.” He tries to brush her off with a half-assed smile. She doesn’t even say anything, she just stares at him until he relents. 

“I’m afraid I’m feeling a bit nauseous from the trip in your little yellow ‘car.’” He stresses the last word sarcastically. (When she told him what it was called earlier he scoffed and told her it was an odd term for a carriage.) 

“Wait, Captain Hook is car sick?” She says quietly and laughs at the absurdity of her fucking life. “I’m sorry that’s just hilarious.”

“Oh yes, very funny.” He rolls his eyes at her. She looks over at him and his pinched expression, but she doesn’t have an opportunity to say anything else before it’s time for her to place her order. 

She makes a detour into the gas station before they go, limits Henry to one soda, and then grabs herself a cup of coffee. Henry drags Hook around the store with another slew of questions as she wonders down a couple aisles to find what she’s looking for.

She hands him a bottle of water and a couple of pills when they get back in the car. 

“What is this?” He reaches tentatively for the pills. 

“It’s just medicine for your car sickness,” she glances back at Henry who has his head buried in his game system again, “just pop them in your mouth, wash them down with the water. It’ll make you less nauseous.” 

“Thank you, Emma.” He smiles at her, and she’s not expecting the slightly touched expression on his face. They’re just pills. 

Henry’s thankfully asleep when they near the town line. The damn place doesn’t exactly show up on google maps, and last time she made this drive Henry had the coordinates for the town. This time, she has to pull the GPS up on her phone and Hook locates it on the coastline. (How the fuck he remembers that she has no idea.) 

“So, the town  _ is _ here right?” Emma asks under her breath, glancing at him in the passenger seat. He’s slumped in his seat staring pointedly out the front windshield at the horizon, following a tip she had given him earlier to beat the car sickness. 

“Aye, I believe so.” 

“You  _ believe _ so?” She glances at him again, but he merely arches an eyebrow at her. 

“Well I didn’t exactly come over in the curse, Swan. I know little more than you at the moment.” 

“Shh.” She peeks at Henry in the backseat who is sleeping against the window, and she just knows he’s drooling. 

They both breathe a sigh of relief when they cross the town line and the Storybrooke sign materializes without any earthquakes, random car accidents, or wolves. 

“I did not miss that man.” Hook says, plopping down onto the other side of the couch and kicking his legs up on Granny’s coffee table. 

“I know you and David didn’t exactly get along but-”

“Not your father,” Hook shakes his head, “The  _ dwarf _ .”

Emma rolls her eyes, but comes back into the lounge and sits back in her position on the couch, leaning back and crossing her legs. 

“Care for a drink, Swan?” He offers, holding out his flask to her. She eyes the worn brown leather carefully, but accepts it. 

“Do you go anywhere without this?” She throws back the flask, letting the rum - and his rum is always so damn smooth - burn her throat on the way down. 

“Try not to.” He smiles. 

The silence settles over them a bit with only the sound of the crackling fire to keep them company. Her parents left a while ago, the pregnant Mary Margaret ushered gently out of the door by her father. 

This is quite possibly the longest day of her life. She was stuck in a compact car with Captain Hook and her twelve year old for well over eight hours and her mother, Snow White, is pregnant. With her sibling. She takes another swig from the flask. 

When the silence gets too loud and her eyes feel too heavy, she stands up, brushes down the back of her skirt, and then stretches up, trying to pop the tension between her shoulder blades. 

“I have to say, Swan, I quite enjoy the new look.” She glances over her shoulder and he’s got the Captain Hook veneer back on with his stupid charming smile and burning eyes. She wonders what he was thinking about that made him put on the Hook performance again, but she doesn’t reflect too much on it because she’s busy scoffing to hide the flush creeping up her neck. She runs a hand down the back of her skirt again just to make sure it didn’t ride up.

She meets his gaze though, chin held up and a confident smile plastered on because she refuses to rise to the bait here. Slowly, the facade chips a bit, and the cocky grin slips off of his face and her resolve falters until all that’s left between them is the weight of everything unsaid.

_ “There’s not a day will go by that I won’t think of you.” _

_ Dreams of her hands clutching his hair, rum on her tongue and his face between her legs, bringing her right up to the edge and then-- _

_ “Perhaps there's a man that you love in the life that you've lost.” _

_ “I had to try. I was hoping you felt as I did.” _

“Goodnight, Hook.” She breaks first, turning from him.

“Goodnight, Emma.”


	17. Emma - Quiet Minds

Hook acts differently around her parents. Well, he’s always acted differently when it’s just them, but he seems out of place standing next to a pregnant Mary Margaret in the loft, or sitting next to Regina at their table. Maybe he just seems out of place because he seems to know he’s out of place. He’s a little subdued and fidgety. It’s weird. 

One of the first nights back in town, after a stressful meeting with her parents and Regina, Henry’s sleeping soundly in the other room and she’s sits on her bed for a few minutes before the jitters get to her leg and the clock is ticking too loud and Henry’s breathing is too even. Granny’s liquor is under lock and key, so when she finds herself downstairs Emma is disappointed to be putting a kettle on the stove for tea instead of whiskey. She never used to drink tea before New York. 

“Fancy seeing you here, Swan.” She’s entirely unsurprised to look over and see Hook standing next to her in the kitchen. His hair is standing up at the back and he’s stripped down to just his shirt and pants, even his boots were left upstairs. She, however, is already in her pajamas.

“You don’t seriously sleep in those leather pants, do you?” She asks and Hook smiles sarcastically, moving towards her in the kitchen.

“No, because I don’t sleep in pants.” He leans against the counter next to her and grins. Emma’s jarred for just a second by the answer before she remembers herself and scoffs at him. 

“Cool it, Casanova.” 

“Who?” 

“Don’t worry about it.” She rolls her eyes. It’s an odd kind of comfort that he’s as lost in her world as she feels about his. “You want a cup of tea?”

“What kind?” 

“I’m having Chamomile.” She hands her tea bag over to him and lifts up onto her toes to peer further into the cabinet, “Granny’s also got Earl Grey, Green, Black, uh...lemon ginger? Lavender…”

“It’s been a long while since I’ve had hot tea, Swan.” Hook grabs the cabinet door, and although he’s only got a few inches on her, he peers easily into the cabinet. “None of those sound like anything we had in our Realm.”

“Well, Chamomile is supposed to help you sleep, wanna try it?”

“Ah, like Poppy Tea.”

“What?” 

“Poppy Tea,” He says as if that clarifies anything, “you know the Poppy Powder we used to put the giant to sleep? That was the most potent form, but there’s a more common strain, steep some of the petals into tea and it helps you sleep.” 

“Well I’m fresh out of poppies,” Emma starts, “But how about we try Chamomile, see if it works?” 

“If the lady insists.” He folds his arms across his chest and gives her a half hearted smile. There’s something weighing him down, there has been since she took that potion and probably before. She wants to ask, she knows there’s something more going on with him, but she knows if she presses, his defenses are going to go back up. It’s strange, he was never guarded like this with her before. The knowledge that there’s something he’s not telling her just makes her  _ need _ the answers more. 

She sees it when he sits down for lunch with them and his gaze drifts away, or how she hasn’t found him down at the docks once since they returned. He’s quiet. It’s unnerving. 

She finally loses her patience with it as they’re trekking through the woods a few days later.

“The hell were you doing for the last year alone on that ship? I'm guessing it was one swashbuckling tale after another till you decided to come back and save me?” she goads him. She doesn’t expect him to respond, but his dismissive “exactly” is too much. Not telling her is one thing, but lying to her face is new for him and she doesn’t like it. 

“You’re lying.” She stops in the middle of the path and turns on him. 

“Excuse me?” He’s fucking defensive, jaw held up so he’s looking down at her, and his own walls are shuttered over his eyes. That’s his tell. Normally his eyes (beautiful and ridiculously blue like the ocean) are warm or challenging, they’re very expressive. So when he shuts her out they’re the first thing to go cold. 

“What happened back there? What aren’t you telling me?” She pushes to no avail. 

“Nothing. That’s my tale and I’m sticking to it.”

“Still don’t believe you.”

“Well, let’s leave it at that and you can just say thank you.” He shifts the topic and she allows it. So long as they’re both aware that she knows he’s full of shit about this, she’s somewhat satisfied. That’s always worked for them. Honesty. 

“For my memories? I already did.” 

_ (“Perhaps gratitude is in order now.” “Is that all your father’s life is worth to you?”) _

“For saving you from a loveless marriage.” He pushes back, and those walls are down and his eyes are expressive again. This time she’s defensive, because the words sting a bit, Walsh, in general, fucking stings and she’s trying not to think about it. 

And if she’s honest with herself, which she’s not good at either, it’s embarrassing and humiliating. She opened herself up to love again and he was playing her the whole time. “I actually kinda liked you.”

Maybe it’s less embarrassing that Hook is the one that found her. He’s like all the parts of her she ignores reflected in another person. It’s not like her parents, who are optimistic and all about true love and fate and destiny and their own delusion of moral virtue. He’s seen pain, he’s seen the worst parts of himself, he’s been hurt by the world, broken in a mirrored pattern to her own. He understands that sting of personal betrayal like the other people in her life don’t.

She wonders who hurt him like she’s been hurt.

“Is that what you think you’re doing?” She bites back defensively.

“Well, he was a flying monkey.” He taunts her right back. Low Hanging fruit. 

“I didn't know that.” He softens at her words. He swallows, eyes softening at the corners, expressive blue  _ searching _ her in a familiar way. 

_ (“You're something of an open book.”) _

“Were you considering it? His proposal.” 

“Does it matter?” She counters, still defensive.

“Humor me.” 

“Yes, okay?” She gives in, taking a breath she didn’t remember holding before pushing through the words she hasn’t wanted to say. “I was in love, so of course I was considering it. As usual, he wasn't who he said he was, and I got my heart broken. That enough humor for you?” 

“Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm glad to hear that.” He ducks his head, seemingly contrite. 

“You're glad to hear I had my heart broken?” she asks, already bristing for whatever fucking answer he’s about to give but-

“If it can be broken,” he steps into her space, and she pulls back with a sharp intake of breath, not realizing how she had been leaning into the space between them. “It means it still works.” He’s close enough that the puff of air from his breath in the cold brushes against her face and she could reach out to grip his arm, his jacket, any of him. He could just lean forward, hand on the back of her head and draw her to him, press his mouth to hers like the last time they stood toe-to-toe like this. She knows he wants to. But he smells like sea and his eyes are warm and kind and boring into her and she--

She turns and walks away, knowing he’ll follow. She just needs a minute. He always fucking does this, spouts the most romantic shit she’s ever heard in her life when she’s mad and wants to fight and it  _ throws _ her because it always comes out of left field and she’s never ready for it. How do you prepare yourself for  _ “it means it still works,” “when I win your heart,” _ or  _ “There's not a day will go by I won't think of you.” _

Her face is warm as she walks away from him. 


	18. Killian - Quiet Minds

It’s been so long since he’s been around the royals. The Queen acts almost like a different person, softer around the edges (though her words no less biting) and even the Prince seems subdued. Snow, bless her, seems content to exist in her own happy bubble with a babe on the way. He wonders what happened to them after he left. 

He’s heading out of Grannys to find Tink at the convent when he crosses Emma and Henry eating lunch. He nods at her in greeting on his way through the diner, but it’s Henry’s voice that stops him. 

“Hey Killian!” Killian stops himself in time to turn towards the boy, leaning against the back of the booth Emma is sitting in. 

“Hello, lad. Emma.” He greets kindly. “Do you find Storybrooke to your liking, Henry?” 

“It’s super weird.” Henry laughs, and Killian chuckles along with him. 

“Aye, I feel the same way.”

“You’ve never lived here?” He questions, setting the electronic game device down on the table. 

“No, I was here briefly last year, but this is my first extended stay.” He doesn’t bat an eye at the look Emma shoots over her shoulder. 

“If you don’t know anyone else, do you want to have lunch with us?” Henry offers, “It’s just me and Mom.”

“Henry, I’m sure Killian has other things to do.” She tries to brush the lad off, but Henry pouts up at him. 

“Yes, I was just heading down to the docks for a stroll.” Killian gestures over his shoulder.

“Well, I want to see the dock’s too. Eat with us and then we can go down there together, right Mom?” Henry levels his mother with a look that speaks volumes in a language Killian is not versed in. Emma hangs her head for just a moment before scooting over in the booth with a huff. 

Which is how he finds himself pressed in next to her, sitting across from the lad. Henry laments a tale of meeting the Cricket and his canine as they wait for one of the young waitresses to bring them food over. Killian stares dumbly down at the menu for a bit as the boy talks, trying to think of something on the menu that sounds appetizing. The foods he’s seen the others eating, drenched in breading, always has him feeling heavy and sluggish with an unsettled stomach. 

Emma and the boy order some of that nauseating food, and he settles for soup and water. 

The weight of her thigh against his in the booth is all he can think about. She’s warm against him, and brushes against his arm as she gestures along with her words. Killian puts his left arm across the booth behind her to alleviate the small space, false hand secured into the brace there. He tries not to think about the easy way she seems to fit into his side or the domestic scene they cut with laughter and how it makes his heart feel just a little lighter. 

It’s odd. He doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t belong in the soft sunlight loft belonging to her parents. He shouldn’t be extending his hook to assist a pregnant Snow White in standing from the couch, or clapping Emma’s lad on the back as he finally hits the dart board after a dozen tries. He shouldn’t be having lunch with her and her boy, shouldn’t be privy to fond smiles and laughter, shouldn’t be shaking hands with Prince Charming, or have Granny pass him an “Irish Coffee” with a warm grin.

He doesn’t fit. 

But he wants to.

“The hell were you doing for the last year alone on that ship? I'm guessing it was one swashbuckling tale after another till you decided to come back and save me?” She teases as she walks ahead of him. 

“Exactly.” He says, dismissing her prodding of the subject like he’s been doing since they got back to town.

“You’re lying.” She turns on him.

“Excuse me?” 

“What happened back there? What aren’t you telling me?” She insists with that fierce heavy look of hers. 

“Nothing.” There’s not much he won’t do for Emma, he’s already crossed realms for her. But this? The respite of the last year is not something he wants to share. He’s not proud of the last year of his life, and it has no bearing on her. If there were something he knew about that time that would help he would share it. But the burden of failing to be the man he knows he can be is one for him and him alone. 

She doesn’t need to know about drunken nights and how he could barely look at another woman after her, and the sharp words of the mermaid on Jolly. She doesn’t need to know about the black swan inked onto his skin, or how he dreamed of her. She was happy, she doesn’t need to know he wasn’t (and he’s not particularly sure she’d even care.) “It’s my tale and I’m sticking to it.”

“Still don’t believe you.”

“Well, let’s leave it at that and you can just say thank you.” he retorts.

“For my memories? I already did.” 

“Well, for saving you from a loveless marriage.” Killian tries to bite down the sting of it but some slips into his words. He doesn’t flinch though, just holds his chin up and keeps her gaze. Every conversation with them is a battle: she strikes, he parries, she blocks, he deflects. Neither of them are ever particularly keen to give the other the upper hand.

“Is that what you think you’re doing?” 

“Well, he was a flying monkey.”

“I didn't know that.” Her voice is too soft, but he follows her tone, the new pace of her words. He doesn’t want to fight with her, but it either ends with her storming off or opening up to him, and he sees the opening to push here. He will always respect her choice, her boundaries, but he’ll push right up to them, and if she opens the barriers he’ll push ahead until he finds the new line in the sand. 

“Were you considering it? His proposal.” He asks, matching the tone of her voice. A gentle prod at what he’s sure is just another barrier she’s attempting to erect around her heart. 

“Does it matter?” She counters, tone still combative.

“Humor me.” 

“Yes, okay?” Her tone is harsh, “I was in love, so of course I was considering it. As usual, he wasn't who he said he was, and I got my heart broken. That enough humor for you?” 

Idly, he wonders what actually happened with her and Baelfire...Neal. He’ll always hold affection for that boy on his ship, Milah’s boy, but what did he do to hurt Emma. How did he break her to the point that she thinks she cannot be whole again?

“Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm glad to hear that.” He says, looking down at the way her hand is fisted in the side of her jacket. 

“You’re glad to hear I had my heart broken?” She asks, and he can see the hurt on her face that isn’t reflected in her words. 

“If it can be broken,” he steps into her space, and the air is cold, he can see the puff of their warm breath mingling in the space between them. She straightens, her breath stuttered on her lips as she glances down at his own. He tries not to let his heart soar too high on the fact that it’s still here. The connection they held, the weight between them is still alive. He still sees desire in her eyes, the glance down at his lips, the sharp intake of her breath as he moves towards her. “It means it still works.”

He knows he’s hit her barriers, knows that this is when she flees. But for this moment, he’ll hold her gaze for as long as he can, forcing her to acknowledge what lies between them. This is a battle he hopes he loses one day. He’s accepted his feelings for her long ago, so he stands his ground. She’s afraid of her own feelings, whatever they may be, and until she can accept herself, even if what she feels for him isn’t love, she’ll never win. 

He desperately wants her to win this battle, even if it means he doesn’t win the war.

He’s reminded of Neverland, the humidity and heat, the flora and fauna around them, perpetual moonlight across her skin. They’ve stood here before, toe-to-toe, just them and the undeniable tension between them.

She breaks away first, turns and walks away from him.

Following her is turning out to be one hell of an adventure.

“Someone’s going to have to stay and watch Belle.” Emma pulls him aside by the cuff of his jacket. For a moment he’s confused why she has pulled him aside to tell him this, weary expression on her face. Then he realizes. 

“And you want me to watch over her?” He scoffs.

“I know your relationship is...complicated.” Emma shakes her head, disbelieving in her own damn words, “But I have to watch Henry, and my parents are going to try and track Gold and Regina’s out at the farmhouse so--”

“So I’m your last resort.” He smiles unkindly at her. 

“No it’s because I…” Emma huffs, tugging at his cuff once more, her gaze trained on the pattern of his jacket lining there “It’s because I trust you, okay.” 

The words stutter his heart for a second.

“Well then, as you wish, Swan.” 

She glances away with some private, small smile before looking him in the eye again and nodding, expression just a bit lighter than it was before.

“If Neal used that key, he should be dead right now.” Belle tells Emma before setting the phone down. Killian leans back from the table.

“What did Emma say?” 

She glances up at him before shrugging and gesturing down at the phone. “I’m not sure, she hung up.”

“Do you think he would have done that?” Killian asks, “Exchanged his life for his father’s?” 

“I don’t know.” Belle lets out a heavy breath, shoulders sagging. “If he did, Rumple wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Through everything, the last couple hundred years he and the crocodile have circled one another, it’s always been a constant. The cripled old man on his ship all those years ago begging for his wife, not for him, but for their son. (Unwilling to fight for his family, but with empty words of love and caring.) He thinks of his conversation with Baelfire in the hospital not twenty minutes ago: _ “I need to do this, Killian. You know that, right?” _

“Aye, he wouldn’t have.” Killian nods, “I fear Bae may have done it anyway.”

Killian and David go to collect the body. He’s mourned this man so many times, but seeing him lying there on the forest floor makes it feel real in a way it hasn’t been before. He kneels down, presses two fingers to too cold skin, no blood pumping beneath it. No heartbeat. 

( _ Milah collapses back in his arms and they fall to the deck. She reaches up, fingers ghosting the side of his face, green eyes staring up at him. “I love you.” Her final words are forever etched into his heart, a cold gravestone in the dark valley of his soul. Her last gasp lingers on his skin.  _

_ She falls to the deck, growing colder by the second. He reaches down, fingers stroking down the side of her temple, thumb across her cheekbone. She’s already cold. _ )

He reaches out to Bae, hand pressing along the side of his face, fingers at his temple. His skin is cold and damp from the rain. His eyelids already pressed closed. He’s thankful for the small mercy of not having to look at his unseeing eyes. He sees Milah in the cut of his cheekbone, the arch of his brow. 

This is Milah’s boy. 

“I’m sorry, Bae.” He says gently, brushing his thumb along his cheek. Will they see each other? In whatever exists beyond life? Whatever there is after all of this, the underworld, hell or heaven, whatever it is, will they see one another? Will she get the reconciliation with her boy she longed for since the moment they left port? Will he forgive her?

David’s hand on his shoulder startles him out of his thoughts. 

“Hook?” The prince’s voice is gentle, and Killian pats the side of Bae’s face one more time before wiping at the moisture in his eyes.

“Let’s get him back to the truck.” David says. 

When Emma knocks on his door late that night, red face and disheveled, holding a bottle of amber liquid in hand, he doesn’t hesitate to step aside for her to enter his room. There’s no banter, no quips. He closes the open book he had on the bed and joins her sitting up against the headboard. 

“What’s this?” He gestures to the glass bottle she holds with both hands, thumb brushing over the label. 

“Neal and I used to drink this when we knew each other...before. I haven't drank the stuff since but…” Her voice trails off. He leans his head back against the headboard and observes her. Her face is red and her eyes look swollen. He’s never really seen her hair pulled up before, but it’s tied up off of her neck in some messy knot and she’s clad in little more than her sleep clothes. 

He’s afraid to speak the words, even just in his mind for fear she’ll somehow sense it. But she seems vulnerable, raw and ragged from the day’s events. He itches to comfort her somehow. Instead he just grips the curve of his own hook to busy his hand.

“What kind of liquor is this, Swan?” 

“It’s called Fireball, it’s like...cinnamon whiskey” She twists off the cap, “Neal liked to snag a bottle when we could, so it always reminded me of him.” 

“I’m afraid I have no glasses, Emma.” Killian gestures around him, and it gets him the smallest smile. “Bad form to be ill prepared to entertain a lady.”

“Good think I’m not a lady.” She rolls her eyes and holds the bottle up between them. “To Neal.”

In lieu of a glass, he taps his hook to the bottle, “To Neal.”

( _ Neverland moonlight shines down on her through the grates and she looks like a siren with glowing skin and hair, fingers wrapped around the cutlass he gave her. Bae’s cutlass _ .) 

“That’s shit.” Killian coughs on his shot, and she laughs at him, patting him on the back as he tries to get control of his lungs. It’s overly sweet and the cinnamon burns his mouth unpleasantly.

“Yea, It’s not for everyone.” She chuckles. 

Silence settles over them, accented only by the noise of the crickets in the woods through the open window and the low hum of the ceiling fan above them. They pass the bottle back and forth, despite the wretched taste. Mourning is hard. Mourning for a second time is somehow worse. It’s the death of the hope for a second chance, a true death. They both saw the body, felt the cold skin of it. There’s no second chance (or third or fifth whatever they’re on at this point,) no hope of Bae popping up around the corner to come to Henry’s rescue, no Echo cave to save him from. This is it. 

“How’d the lad take it?” He asks her once the silence settles in the room. 

She passes him the bottle and leans her head back against the headboard, looking up at the ceiling with a grimace. “He doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand, all he’s known is what I’ve told him, that Neal abandoned me, he doesn’t know that Neal loved him.” She grimaces as her eyes well with moisture again voice cracking over her words, “And there’s no way I can make him understand that.”

“He’ll understand one day, Emma.” 

“You don’t understand, you don’t just get over your parents leaving you like that.” Emma shrugs.

“I do.” He says before he can think better, picking at a loose thread on the cuff of his sleeve. “Understand what that’s like.” 

Emma is quiet for too long, and the room feels too hot and too small. But Emma doesn’t respond. He spares a glance at her and her expression is somehow more broken than it was before. 

“It’s his father. He deserved to get to say goodbye.” Shoulders shaking, she turns her face from him and presses the heel of her hand to her eyes. 

He knows the thoughts that linger when you don’t get to say goodbye. 

The urge is too strong. His touch to her is tentative, but she doesn’t jump under it, doesn’t shove him away or turn to glare at him. He rests his palm over the curve of her clothed knee. After a shuddering breath, she does look back at him, tears pushed back for now, down in the safety of herself where others can’t see. ( _ He wants to see, but he fears her tears would break any restraint he has left _ .) 

It’s tragic, he thinks, because it’s not that Emma doesn’t want to cry. It’s that she’s so terrified of the vulnerability of it that even in private she can’t bring herself to let go. 

Her smile is bitter, and she tries to sniff the after effects of her emotions away, cheeks red from the pressure of her hands and the burn of tears. He strokes the outside of her knee with his thumb gently, his own throat feeling heavy as he tries to swallow around it, his chest tight. Loss has circled around him his whole life, like a pendulum, crossing his path (mother) only to swing away and come back (father), always circling (Liam), always returning (Milah), always cruel. He knows loss intimately, it comes and goes like the tide, sometimes sweeping him under its currents, other times only lapping at his toes. He knows loss as well as he knows the sea, but that doesn’t make either of them any less cruel. 

( _ He’s already got a scar on his thigh for Baelfire, the one right next to the black ink for Milah. It burns the longer he thinks about it, always there, always a reminder of his failures. _ )

He dares not make too hard a gesture, take too deep a breath, let his voice break the weight of emotion in the room, knowing that she’s going to run soon. She looks down at his hand and his heart jumps into his throat, waiting for her to pull away. Instead, she takes a steadying breath and sets her hand over the back of his. She doesn’t look at him but that’s alright. This is alright.

She won’t allow herself such comfort in the morning, around her parents and the rest of the town. But here in his dimly lit quarters, with the ease of alcohol and privacy, the two people in town that loved the man can take a modicum of comfort in one another over his death.


	19. Emma - The Jolly Roger

It’s bullshit that he’s the only one here who really understands. Her parents don't have to know Neal to comfort her, they don’t have to know the worst parts of him, don’t need to know how long she’s hated him. They’re there for her and it’s nice. But they don't feel the same way she feels. They feel bad, empathetic, but it begins to feel too much like pity and she hates it. She drops Henry off at the Inn to have some alone time and runs out to grab the liquor. 

Slipping across the hall to his room is easy. She doesn’t know what she wants from him, what she needs. She enjoys his presence and he’s the only other one in Storybrooke (other than Gold but he’s off the grid) who really seems to give a shit about Neal and that’s...important. It means something. Misery loves company. She remembers his soft sad eyes in Neverland when Neal was brought up, the pain on his face when they were in his little cave. He cares. He is sentimental despite his weak protests. 

She needs someone to care. 

The fireball tastes like sloppy teenage kisses, fumbling in the back of the bug, his hand uncertain up her skirt. She’s never been able to drink it without thinking of him. She hated it for a long time. 

“You don’t understand, you don’t just get over your parents leaving you like that.” she tells him when he gives her some platitude about Henry ‘understanding one day.’

“I do.” He says quietly, pointedly looking away from her. “Understand what that’s like.” 

( _ “I just wanted to let you know that I do know what it feels like, to lose hope.” _ )

_ (“...once a Lost Boy, always a Lost Boy.” _ )

Oh. 

It’s not a surprise honestly, it really only serves to explain a lot about him that she’s already suspected. She wonders if he was abandoned like her, or if he lost like Henry. Which one hurts more?

He puts his hand on her knee to comfort her and she should refute him, should put a stop to it, should tell him that  _ now’s not the time, Hook _ . But there’s nothing lecherous there. It’s not a come on, it’s not flirting or any sort of seduction. He’s trying to comfort her, to be mindful of her tears. 

But he knew Neal too. He knew him as a boy, cared enough to keep a sword in his ship for however many decades, cared enough to uproot his whole life in honor of him. Cared enough to help save his son when all it meant was pain and suffering for himself. Killian cared. She wants to know what happened, adds it on the long list of questions she’s dying to ask him, but now’s not the time. He’s upset too, and yet he’s just trying to comfort her physically when his words did not work. 

She sets her hand on his where it’s warm over her knee. She squeezes his hand and his rings press into her skin. It’s grounding. 

She’s not good at comfort. But he needs it just as much as her, and while she has an endless line of people (her parents, Henry, the dwarves, Granny, Ruby, even Regina) waiting to comfort her, for her to fall into despair in their arms. Who does he have? If he doesn’t have her, does he really have anyone else?

She’s known that loneliness for too long.

Emma hasn’t been to many funerals in her life. Honoring someone’s memory means you have to have memories with them, a relationship, and nobody has ever stuck around long enough for that. The last funeral she went to was for Graham. She’s not good at them. For Neal, she stands up front with Henry and they greet everyone as they arrive. Her hands feel dirty with the amount of hands she shakes. (People that didn’t know him, didn’t love him like she did.) God she spent so long hating him and now she’s the closest thing to family at his funeral. 

Henry doesn’t understand the weight of it all, but he stands with her regardless. The only ones that seem troubled by the body in the casket are the group from Neverland: Killian, Tink and the group of Lost Boys trailing behind them. Tink looks a mess, and the boys subdued, but Killian, despite the sorrow she can see in his expression, still stands tall. He grabs her arm before he walks away and it’s grounding. 

Killian is just insistent on  _ being there _ . He was with her last night, he’s here today and he stands next to her as they lower the casket into the ground. They’re not touching, but his presence at her back in solidarity is nice. Sure, she has her parents and Henry, but what they feel is pity, empathy. And she knows this hurts Killian in the same way it hurts her and that’s a comfort she’s not used to. 

“Perhaps Henry’d like to hear what his father was like when he was his age.” The gesture is so fucking kind and nice that she’s not quite sure what to do with it. She’s in no position to comfort her own son, she’s not even sure what Henry feels about all of this, but maybe...maybe hearing about Neal from someone that he doesn’t think is lying to his face will help. Hell, maybe just being around another guy will help. Or just being around someone who is hurting, and is relatively open and honest with their feelings is something Henry needs that she can’t provide for him. 

She’s still got the necklace clutched in her hands long after Henry falls asleep next to her. He’s a little old for it, but she has fake memories of him doing this when he was a little boy, him crawling into her bed with tear stained cheeks from nightmares. 

The memories of him, the ones she’s cherished for the past year suddenly feel so fragile. They felt so real before, but now looking back there’s a haze to them. She suspects these are just Regina’s memories of raising Henry. That it was Regina that pressed a kiss to his hair as a baby, Regina with the sleepless nights, Regina rushing him to the ER with his first fever. 

None of it was real. 

Nothing in her life has ever been real. Just like the future that was promised to her when Neal handed her this keychain. Tallahassee. Promises of settling down, a life, a home. She was young and dumb and he promised her everything in the world and she  _ knew _ she shouldn’t trust him to deliver but she chose to anyway. None of it was ever real. The only real thing is that for all he said he loved her, Neal still left her alone. He promised her the world and then ripped it out from under her. 

_ “I saved this for you to give to you again. Take it. Go find Tallahassee. Even if it's without me.” _

She slides out of bed when the tears come, and she’s barely able to close the bathroom door behind her and turn on the shower before the sobs break from her mouth. She bites down on the side of her fist to muffle the noise from Henry but they’re wracking her chest now, her lungs can’t keep up, she’s gasping for breath around the broken noises ripped from her very core. 

Something small in her longs for six months ago, when she could have Walsh hold her and she could bum around with Henry and her co-workers would take her out drinking to cheer her up. The larger part of her knows it was all lies, a fabrication, the illusion of the life she always wanted. But it was good. 

Something small in her longs for six months ago, when she could have Walsh hold her and she could bum around with Henry and her co-workers would take her out drinking to cheer her up. The larger part of her knows it was all lies, a fabrication, the illusion of the life she always wanted. But it was good. 

That small part of her is still that seventeen year old girl that was promised Tallahassee, the one that just wanted to  _ be _ with someone. It’s the voice inside of her that always longs for her parents love, the part of her that wants to be wanted, that little girl that didn’t understand why mommy and daddy were sending her away at age three, the one that grew up alone on the streets, stole and hurt people to survive. The one she always shuts out because it’s  _ weak, _ that’s the voice that has only ever brought her pain and suffering. 

One hand is white-knucled on the edge of the sink, the other is tightened painfully around the charm dangling from her neck. She has to close her eyes to block out the stars in her vision and the vertigo overcoming her, but she stays standing. 

It could be five or fifteen minutes later, but eventually she’s shivering in the bathroom with a pulsing headache and swollen eyes. She pulls herself up by the bootstraps, washes her face and shuts off the shower. Peeking out of the bathroom, thankfully Henry is still asleep. Changing into sleep clothes and still clutching that stupid charm, she contemplates crawling back into her bed where Henry fell asleep earlier. 

Instead, she slides his shoes off of his feet, unzips his hoodie and lifts him up enough to slide it off of his too-small shoulders and the jeans down his hips. After setting his clothes aside, she sits herself down on the bed next to him, combing through his hair across his forehead. She’s glad his eyes are closed because she’s not sure if she could handle him looking at her with Neal’s eyes right now. She leans forward to press a kiss to his forehead, to smooth out the wrinkled t-shirt, to pull the comforter up to his chest. 

She loves Henry more than anything in the world. He’s all she really  _ has _ in the world that is hers...and even that’s a lie. She’s not the woman who raised him, the one that made him lunches and dressed him for his first day of school. She’s the woman who laid in run down motels and apartments and imagined his life, not even knowing his name or what he looked like. 

She would imagine a little boy that looked like her, one that looked like Neal. She imagined a happy life for him, one with a mom and dad that adopted him because she knew that someone would find him and fall in love with him and keep him. Everyone adopts babies, it’s the older kids nobody wants. Emma was just a fluke, the Swans must have known she was broken, they could see how damaged she already was and nobody wanted to keep her. But not her baby. She always knew he had to have someone out there that loved him, someone that knew how to love another person, a loving mom or dad that tucked him in and kissed his forehead at night. 

It was her most painful past time, dreaming of him. Of trilling giggles and a warm smile, of dimpled cheeks and kind eyes. She always kept track of his birthday, and that usually lined up with a night that ended with her shit-faced drunk in whatever shitty city she was living in at the time. 

She never dreamed that she would ever get to have this with him.

She never really did though, did she? It was all a lie. 

She doesn’t plan on running into him. Trudging downstairs, holding a sweater tight around her frame, Emma is honest to god just looking for a glass of water to wash down her tylenol. But when she turns the corner around the stairs she sees lights already on in the diner and curiosity gets the better of her. 

She goes into the kitchen first, her sock-clad feet are thankfully quiet as she tiptoes to the window to get a peek into the diner. He’s lounging in the corner booth, stripped down to his shirt and pants and he’s got a book sat in his lap and a mug sat on the table in front of him along with some fruit. 

The exhaustion is still wrapped heavy around her and her mind feels a little far away, maybe that’s why she ends up staring at him for a minute. He still looks like something from a harlequin romance novel with the open billowing shirt, but she can see the slumped set of his shoulders even from here. 

“It’s bad form to stare, darling.” She blinks and suddenly he’s looking across the diner at her with an arched brow and god how long had she been staring. 

Fighting the blush, Emma turns away and grabs herself a glass of water.

“What are you doing down here?” She asks him as she exits the kitchen with her water. It’s colder down here than it had been upstairs, and she should be more concerned with her state of undress (sleep shorts and a tank top being the only thing under her open sweater) but he’s not looking at her and the closer she gets the more she can see how tired he also seems. 

“Wasn’t feeling much like sleep at the moment.” He shrugs as she slides into the booth across from him.

“So you stopped off for a nightcap?” She tries to tease, but he doesn’t raise to the bait. 

“Just tea tonight, Swan.” He dog ears a corner and sets the book down on the table, finally looking up at her. Without the outer layers, he seems more...personable. But she can also see the sagging line of his shoulders, his slumped posture. He seems tired. 

As he takes her in, his expression shifts into concern at her red face and swollen eyes. She resists the urge to look away, to brush her hand through what she’s sure is a bird’s nest in her hair, to draw her sweater tight around herself. 

She could just go upstairs, go lay down with Henry, go to sleep but...but she doesn’t want to be alone. She could call her parents but they’re probably in bed, she could call--well who else did she have, really? Even so, maybe she wants him to comfort her instead of her parents or anyone else. It’s selfish, and it edges too close to letting him in for her own comfort but she wants it nonetheless. 

She wants to be around him. 

She wants to be around the man that somehow came from another realm to find her in New York. The man that stands at her side despite her coldness. The kind of man that sees her son’s pain and wants to comfort him, the one that’s good to Henry and Henry likes in return. The man that, on multiple occasions has comforted her, tried to help her, with no sense of reward on his end. 

“Emma--”

“Don’t.” She shakes her head before he can get started. “Just...I don’t want to think about it anymore.” 

“As you wish, love.” The silence before his reply, tense with her own anxiety, was cut short by his words and she couldn’t help but look up at him restraining a smile.

(“ _ I never thought I'd be capable of letting go of my first love...of my Milah...to believe that I could find someone else. That is, until I met you.”) _

“Anyway, what are you reading?” She brushes off his confused expression and pushes on. She can keep the secret of that phrase for herself, he doesn’t need to know why it makes her stomach flutter. 

“I’m not sure, Belle lent it to me.” He turns the book over to double-check the title and she sees the gold-scrawled text on the cover.

“You’re seriously reading ‘Pride and Prejudice’?” Emma scoffs, “Was it the last book on the shelf downstairs?”

“I’ll have you know, Swan, Belle herself recommended it.” Hook grabs the novel and slides it back into his lap. “Have you ever read it?”

“No,” Emma laughs, “I’m not much of a reader.”

“I think you’d like this one.” Hook smiles slowly at her like he knows something she doesn’t, “The leading lady is quite headstrong.”

“You know that’s a romance novel, right?” 

“Aye,” he sets the book back down, avoiding her deflection, “I’m well aware.” 

( _ “...when I win your heart, Emma...and I will win it...it will not be because of any trickery. It will be because you want me”) _

Emma gets up from the booth and heads to the back of the diner, rummaging through a shelf in the back room near the jukebox. Returning a few moments later, she tosses a deck of cards down on the table in front of him. 

“You know any good card games?” 

When she wakes up in the morning, stiff and aching and worn out, she lays in bed for a bit. Sunlight drifts in through the off white colored curtains and she misses her apartment in New York. She misses her soft bed, and the way the sunlight looked spilling into her room in the morning. The smell of their plants, making breakfast with Henry in the mornings and cooking him dinner at night. 

Maybe it wasn’t real, but it was home. It felt like home. It was safe, and there were never evil witches or curses or spells. No funerals and no unbearable ache in her chest. She got up at the same time every day, she wasn’t exhausted or stressed all the time. They had a routine and it was  _ good _ and they were happy. 

(“ _ I actually kind of liked you.” _ )

(“ _ A reminder that I was never safe. All that I wanted, that I thought I could have was not in the cards for the savior _ .”)

She just wants to go back to that. Henry was happy there, Neal was buried in their past, there was no Hook, no Regina. She didn’t have to share Henry with anyone, she didn’t have to be anything other than  _ Mom _ . She wasn’t anyone’s Savior, she wasn’t anyone’s daughter, nobody’s sheriff. 

She can’t handle this. She’s not strong enough. She wants to go back to that so bad. 

It would be best for both of them, to get out of this world neither of them belong in, leave behind magic and monsters and witches. Leave behind painful relationships and the ghost of Neal. Just go back to their old life in New York, go back to what they knew. Go back to the old Emma. 

Maybe if she says it enough, she can convince herself it’s true. 


	20. Killian - The Jolly Roger

Telling Tink of Bae’s fate isn’t an experience he wished to have again. The fairy took it well, she’s known loss before, but her tears were new for Killian. Unlike Emma, Tink was very emotional and after the tears and yelling, she folded herself into him for comfort. He couldn’t remember the last time someone else hugged him. 

The last time he hugged another was Bae in the hospital right before…well before all of this. Tink is warm and buzzes with magic and she’s shaking like a bloody leaf. Emma knows Neal Cassidy, she knows the man Neal became, but he and Tink both mourn for that same boy. That young lad with hair that curled around his ears that stood up to Peter Pan and a pirate captain without an ounce of hesitation. 

Maybe that boy they both knew is long gone, lost to a world of pain and betrayal and hurt. Maybe he was gone before Neal Cassidy was ever born. But he loved that boy, the one that existed in Milah’s tales and in the charcoal lines of her drawing journal, the one that challenged him in mother’s honor. 

( _ “Face me, villain!” “You tore apart my family, as sure as if you'd ripped her heart out yourself.”) _

The casket is open when he arrives at the cemetery, and Emma and her boy are standing in front of it, greeting the townsfolk as they arrive for the ceremony. Killian ushers Tink and the band of former lost boys up to the front towards them. He introduces them to Henry and Emma, and then Tink leads the group of boys to the casket to pay their respects. Emma’s gaze feels far away, heavy. She greets him, but doesn’t linger on his face any longer than necessary. He can’t help setting his hand on her arm in some sort of comforting solidarity. He doesn’t get much more than a bitter tight smile, but she doesn’t shove him off either.

Before Mother Superior moves to the front to begin her ceremony Killian watches the boy move towards the casket. Henry raises up on his toes to get a better look at the face of his father. Killian’s relationship with his father was...what it was. But he remembers the last time he saw Liam’s face, remembers running his hand over his brother’s cold cheeks one last time, along his forehead, closing his eyes. 

Henry looks at his father and doesn’t remember who he is. After checking that Emma was preoccupied over his shoulder, Henry reaches out, touches the clothes on Bae. Running his fingers along his father’s face, Henry has absolutely no reaction, only the slight pinch of confusion in his brow. Henry doesn’t deserve this. 

Henry deserves to know how hard his father fought for him, how he was the first thing Bae wanted when they got to the hospital. Deserves to know that Bae crossed realms with a mortal wound to save and protect his son, deserves to know the courage and strength his father always displayed. How strong he’s always been. 

The ceremony is not long, Mother Superior sends him off with kind words and a prayer to the gods to look favorably upon Bae’s soul as he moves on, to guide him to the light. Killian tries to keep his distance, truly, but Emma’s face is drawn down with the weight of Bae’s death, the weight of holding herself together for Henry, the weight of this whole crisis. He can’t help but gravitate towards her. She won’t accept physical comfort, he knows that, but he can be there. 

Sometimes when you’re weathering a storm, all one needs is something to anchor them to the present.

Tink grabs his left arm only a few minutes into Mother Superior’s speech and keeps her grip on him steady. Maybe...maybe Emma can’t let herself want physical comfort right now, but he craves it. He squeezes Tink’s hand with his good one, and finds comfort in the gesture when she leans her head on his shoulder. 

They all stand to gather around as they lower the casket into the soil with Emma and Henry at the head of the casket. For a moment he thinks better of it, but then moves to stand next to her, his body angled in behind hers. He knows she’s not going to collapse, she’s not going to burst into tears, she’s not going to be overcome with emotion. She’s not going to reach back and grab for him or throw herself into his arms. But he wants to be with her, support her. He doesn’t want her to be alone right now any more than he himself wants to be alone. He has Tink to share in his grief, they both loved him as a boy, but he’s the only one Emma has that  _ knew _ Bae.

And maybe he wants to stand there for himself. His time with Bae was brief, but his time with Milah was not and his time spent chasing the Crocodile even longer. He’s had Bae in his thoughts for centuries in one way shape or form, and with the Crocodile being under control of the Wicked Witch, perhaps he’s the closest thing Bae has to a parent here. It’s stupid, he’s not one of Bae’s parents, and as a boy he distinctly disavowed Killian of any such notion, but he cares for him. Milah’s not here to grieve her boy, Milah didn’t get to see him grow into a man, Milah doesn’t get to stand with the mother of her grandson and grieve.

(And even some aborted part of Killian feels for the fact that the Crocodile cannot be here to bury his own son.)

So Killian steps forward first, gathers a chunk of soil, and gently pours it over Bae’s casket for not only himself, but for his mother that could not be here to bury her only son. 

(He fiercely hopes Milah will finally be reunited with her boy in death.)

At the following wake, he sits at a corner table with Tink and the Lost Boys, recounting tales of Baelfire from the island. It’s a tad odd, sitting next to boys that he spent so long battling, reminiscing about a boy that they all hurt in some way. It’s regretful that Bae doesn’t have more loving people to toast to his memory. But Tink recalls housing the boy in her treehouse, teaching him about poisonous berries and giving him a blanket. The boys discuss how when Pan was gone from the camp, they actually had fun with Bae, tussling and wrestling next to a campfire, Bae regaling them with tales of the Land without Magic. Bae deserves more, any man does, but his memory lives on.

It lives on in the boy sitting across the diner. It’s his brown hair and eyes, it’s the smirk the boy gets when he’s being cheeky, it’s Milah’s hair passed down to Bae and then Henry. It’s Snow’s round cheeks, Emma’s pallor, David’s courage. It lives on in the shaky truce he struck with the Crocodile when they left for Neverland. It’s not much, but it’s a memory nonetheless. 

He watches Emma, inadvertently he always does. Gone from last night, from earlier in the graveyard, is the melancholy on her face. She tries to hide it from her boy, but the tension in her shoulders, her pinched expression, the harsh downward turn of her lips and that piercing determination in her eyes: It’s all achingly familiar. That kind of grief is dark and thick like molasses, and he doesn’t want it to obscure Emma’s light. He’s lost himself in that grief too many times to count, it doesn’t help.

“As far as he's concerned, I haven't seen Neal since he left me in jail.” There’s the tease of a tale he’s longed to unravel for ages, but now’s not the time. 

Emma  _ trusts _ him with Henry. She doesn’t pause to evaluate him, doesn’t size him up, ask questions. She entrusts him with the safety of her son, Bae’s son, and that idea strikes him vividly. 

_ “I can’t take the chance that I’m wrong about you.” _ She’s different from the woman he knew back on the beanstalk. Then, he was lucky to peek through the cracks of her defenses, he got just a hint of what lay beneath and it was like Pandora drawn to her box. He knew it was dangerous, love always was, but she’s floated in the periphery of his thought since he met her, a temptation on the edge of his vision like that box whispered to Pandora. He knew not to touch it, knew the dangers that lie within, but gods was he prepared to deal with the consequences if it meant he would find the light at the bottom once the demons cleared. 

Henry is charming as ever, the lad seems desperate to get out of the diner, for he bolts up the stairs to their bedrooms to grab his things before Killian can even explain to him exactly what his plan is. On his way towards the back, Emma grabs him by the wrist with parting words. “Be Careful.” 

(And he knows her concern is mostly for the boy, but a small part of him trills at the  _ caring _ in her tone.)

Henry knows enough about modern sailing, and Killian enough about  _ actual sailing _ that they’re able to commandeer the vessel without trouble. He does wonder, idly, who the owner of the vessel is, but he assured Henry they would be returning it and “Afterall, lad. If they never know it’s gone, can they really miss it?”.

“Not a fan of the gathering, I take it?” He asks once they’re out on the water. 

Henry only seems mildly chagrined as he shrugs. “I don’t know. It sucks, and I should be sad, but like...the guy was kind of an asshole to my mom. I’ve never even seen him before today.” 

“You know,” He tosses Henry some stray rope, “for whatever happened between your parents, at the end of the day they both still cared for one another, and they both loved you.”

“He never even knew I existed.” Henry huffed. 

One more puzzle piece in the enigma of Swan and Bae’s meeting.

“If he did know, he would have done anything for you.”

“Sure.” Henry rolls his eyes.

“If things were different, he would have been a good father to you.” 

“Like he was good to my mom?”

They spend time out on the water, they eat sandwiches kindly provided to him by Widow Lucas on his way out the door. “Take care of that boy, Jones.” She had chided him as he parted her with a kiss to the back of her hand and a wink, throwing thanks over his shoulder. 

Once they’re out on the sea proper, the lad begins to perk up, the weight of his father’s funeral slipping off his shoulders bit by bit. They discuss other things, Henry asks for more stories of his travels, of sailing, and Killian attempts to retrofit some of his tamer adventures into something simpler for this world. Henry tells him tales of when Leroy took him fishing, and how David took him to the animal shelter the other day to see the dogs there. 

As they near nightfall, they dock the boat and Killian takes Henry along the beach, lighting a campfire and handing the lad a strip of rope and a guide to rigging knots. Henry attempts the bowline while Killian stokes the fire, and he doesn’t realize the boy’s frustration until he lets out a frustrated grunt and tosses the rope to the sand between them. 

“This knot is stupid.”

“This knot,” Killian picks up the knotted and tangled rope, “is one of the most basic and important knots you can learn. This is one of the first knots they teach every deckhand.”

“Good thing I’m not a deckhand.” Henry crosses his arms and honest to god pouts. 

For a moment he’s reminded of Emma’s pursed lips when she’s reluctant, but with a start he realizes that this is a memory of Bae. When Bae first came aboard, when they were teaching him the basics as well, he struggled with this same knot. The boy got so frustrated he chucked the loose piece of rope overboard and huffed down to his cabin. Killian had to wait him out until the lad came back to the deck with his tail between his legs, and wordlessly picked up another rope and started again. 

He indulges in the cracked warmth in his chest, lets himself cherish that memory of Bae. He lets himself see Bae in the frustrated set of Henry’s mouth and his biting words. 

“You know, your father struggled with this knot as well.” Killian says.

“Really?” Henry still seems put out, but he glances at Killian out of the corner of his eye, interested in his words.

“Aye. Couldn’t get the damn thing for the life of him, threw a right fit over it.” Killian grabs the rope from the sand and begins untangling it.

“Well...it is a pretty stupid knot.” Henry uncrosses his arms and trains his eyes on the rope in Killian’s hand, opening up a bit.

“Here, let me show you. Now it’ll look a bit different for me, one hand and all, but the idea is the same.” He secures one end of the rope to his prosthetic hand and uses his free hand to make the knot. “Make a rabbit hole here, snake your loose end up and around the line, come back down through the hole and pull it taught.”

Henry stares at the rope in Killian’s hand, face pinched (like Emma) in concentration. He’s silent for a moment, a moment too long that has Killian worried he’s reading this whole thing wrong, before taking the knot, undoing it and attempting it again. 

When Henry finally gets the knot correct, he jumps up from his seat on the log and shouts in exclamation. “Killian, look I did it!” He stands next to Killian and ties the knot again. He does it well, and the lad looks up at him with excitement and pride in his eyes. He looks to Killian the way his crew would in times of turmoil, the way Bae would when he would attempt a new task and look to him to determine if he had done it correctly. 

Henry looks to him for approval, and Killian has to smile past the lump in his throat and clap the lad on the shoulder. “Good job, Henry.”

He teaches him about the sextant later and Henry looks up at him, brown eyes searching, looking to him for answers. The boy shines under the starlight, his eyes big and hopeful and lost, housing so much of Emma and so much of Bae that he feels a physical ache in his chest and realizes he can’t deny the boy. 

“Indeed. You see, you might not think you know much about your father but you have more in common with him than you realize.”

Henry smiles at him, something crooked and gentle and there’s life in those eyes of his for the first time all day. The lad looks up to the stars and something like pride flares in Killian’s chest, his shoulders straighten, his chest puffs out a bit. Henry’s soft cheeks are flushed from the warmth of the fire and the gentle curve of his profile is lit by the stars as he looks to the sky. He looks down at the child of two people he loves so differently but so wholly and feels a protectiveness for the lad, something selfless and powerful that terrifies him. But he’s not afraid of it this time. Not like when he felt the same for Bae all those years ago on Jolly in Neverland. 

He guides Henry through some of the basic workings of the sextant, and when the chill is too biting and Henry’s shoulders begin to slump, they pack up their things and head off towards the Inn. Henry asks a dozen questions on their walk back. (“Where did you guys travel?” “What did my dad like to do?” “Did you guys ever get in trouble?”) Killian offers half answers, too preoccupied with keeping an eye on their surroundings for the Witch to come up with answers in line with his other half-truths and Henry grows frustrated as they near the Inn. 

“I’ll tell you what, lad.” Killian pats his back as they walk around to the back entrance, “Provided we see one another, I’ll answer any questions you have tomorrow, Aye?”

“Why tomorrow?” Henry groans.

“Well, we’re almost back and I’m sure your mother would like to see you. Besides, it’s been a tiring day.” Henry must agree because he doesn’t protest further as Killian ushers him into the building. 

She finds him later that night, as he’s attempting to wind down for bed with a cup of tea that Swan had recommended to aid in sleeping. He spies her through the narrow window to the kitchen, unable to ignore the weight of her stare on him. Beckoning her over, she slides into the booth across from him and he’s startled to find the after-effects of tears on her face. No, not just tears. Her face is red and swollen and the red in her eyes makes her green eyes practically glow under the light. She seems so small and it breaks his heart just a bit. 

He half expects her to go back upstairs after they chat, to head back to her boy, to suffer in silence but she doesn’t. She grabs a deck of cards from the back room and sits down across from him with a glass of water. She wants to spend time with him. She’s seeking him out. 

“This is the stupidest card game I’ve ever heard of.” Emma slams her hand face-down on the table and runs a hand through her hair in frustration. 

“Allowing yourself to be bested by a mere card game, Swan?” He teases her, delighting in every fraction of life that comes back into her face as they talk. 

“It’s not a ‘mere card game’,” she mocks his accent, “I honestly think you’re just making the rules up as we go along.”

“I’ll have you know that Cribbage is a well respected game played in many taverns across the realms.” 

“Well no wonder it’s played in taverns,” she picks her hand back up and looks at her cards, “you have to be drunk to understand the rules.” 

“I think you just don’t like losing.” He lays his own hand facedown, exchanging snide smiles with her.

He tries to teach her the game, to get her away from the thoughts that plague her. At one point, she throws her head back in a bark of a laugh and the rush of affection in his chest is overwhelming. He lets her win a hand, and she glares at him knowing full well he’s going easy on her, but she takes her victory nonetheless. They discuss what occurred with Regina and her  _ sister _ (“Bloody Hell, is everyone in this town related?” “It sure seems like it.”) and Emma catches him up on what he missed during the day. 

The both of them yawn far too many times, and the clock strikes well past midnight so they gather their things to retire upstairs. 

“One day I’ll beat you at that damn game.” She says, wrapping her sweater around her rather bare frame as they near their respective doors. 

“Is that a promise or a threat, Swan?” he toes a bit too close to her but she just smiles tiredly up at him. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” 

“You know I would.” He replies, and she doesn’t automatically turn away, but she does brush some stray hair behind her ear. Then she looks up at her, determination steeling her gaze and she begins to reach out towards him before remembering herself and crossing her arms over her chest instead. 

“Thank you.” she says simply. But oh, Killian has learned quite well the weight those words hold coming from her mouth. On another night he would push closer, push her boundaries. But they’re both hurting and she has sought him out tonight and he can pursue her when Baelfire’s ghost isn’t weight down on both of their shoulders. 

“If it’s in my power, I’ll always be here, Swan.” He says instead. She stares at him for a long moment before biting back a smile with a nod and turning to her room. 

And for once it feels not like one of them is pushing and the other pulling, but that they’re meeting in the middle. His cards have been on the table since Neverland, she knows how he feels for her. Perhaps this is the olive branch extended in his direction. Perhaps this is a step towards winning her heart, earning it. 

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Emma.”


	21. Emma - Bleeding Through

She should have noticed it when she met him on the docks. The flirting is normal when they’re in public settings, when there’s people around. He does it when he’s nervous, but he doesn’t do it around her unless there’s something bothering him. Not if it’s just the two of them. She brushed it off. She shouldn’t have. 

But she has so many things to focus on, and he’s just not at the forefront of her mind with Henry and Regina and the witch and her parents. There’s so much to focus on, so many things to be cautious of. He wasn’t supposed to be something she had to worry about. 

(But if she doesn’t notice when something is wrong with him who else will?)

It doesn’t help that their conversation at the docks unnerves her and she deliberately avoids thinking about the discussion. 

“Magic is a part of you, Swan.” He says with too much earnestness in his gentle voice, “Don't forget, I was there when Cora tried to steal your heart. I saw the power inside of you. It's about time you embraced it. It's what makes you the Saviour.”

“I’m not embracing anything.” she cuts him off before he can continue because she  _ cannot _ deal with this right now. She doesn’t want his warm tone talking about her magic, doesn’t want him to talk about the Savior. “I need to learn magic to defeat Zelena and make sure everyone here is safe. After that, I'm done.”

“Done with what, exactly?”

“He doesn't belong here...not anymore. He belongs in the real world, in New York, and the life that he remembers. It was good. And it didn't involve vile villains.” It’s the first time she’s really saying it out loud and as she says the words she believes them. But...he’s always known how she felt, they’ve always been on the same page. He’s always understood her, always given her her distance, always pushed back when she pushed first. She’s always liked that about him. 

She doesn’t like it now.

“What about the life you remember?” She doesn’t like his hard tone, his heavy brow. She doesn’t like his look because if he looks too hard he’ll see everything crumbling inside of her. “You can't just pretend like this never happened. Trust me. I spent the last year trying to do just that, return to the person I used to be and it didn't work.”

“Why?” she pushes back. She  _ needs _ to know. He’s not lying to her, she knows he’s not, but just because he couldn’t do it doesn’t mean she can’t. He doesn’t understand, her entire life was uprooted, her entire being changed and she  _ misses _ it. It may not have been real but it’s the closest thing she’s had to home her entire life. “What happened over the last year that you're not telling me?”

“It matters not. Just take it from me just this once. No matter how much you wish you could go back to your old life...you can't.”

His words haunt her through the day, they linger in the back of her mind. They linger when Regina pushes her buttons (“ _ You’re going to pretend everyone doesn’t see the yearning looks and doe-y eyes?” “I don’t yearn.” “Well maybe, but he does.” _ ) and as she stands there and fights off the irritation at them. 

But Emma’s forgotten their conversation by time Hook shows up at her parents loft that night. 

She should have noticed then. He’s always been awkward under praise, but he’s being downright flaky and jumpier than some of her skips.

Maybe she doesn’t notice because she doesn’t want to. 

She doesn’t seek him out that night...really she doesn’t. But when she goes downstairs to get a glass of water after Henry’s gone to bed, he’s nowhere to be seen and she can’t deny the disappointment she feels at missing one of their late night chats.

He’s drinking the next morning when she finds him. It’s well before the sun’s high in the sky and he’s already beyond tipsy and slumped in a corner of his room. She extends the invitation to Regina’s that night, offers him a ride even though he declines (and there’s the echo of the disappointment she felt when he declined to go to dinner with them) and she ends up taking the bottle with her. But she doesn’t push. 

(He would push her if he saw this behavior in her. He would corner her and study her and phathom her out, ask her directly what was wrong.)

Even at Regina’s he’s practically cold and distant and he  _ stops _ himself from touching her back on the way out and it’s just  _ weird _ . Then she has to practically twist his arm to sit downstairs with her and even then he’s snippy and rude and...and it hurts. It  _ hurts _ . 

They’re friends. She thought they were friends at least. And he’s pushing her away and it fucking hurts.

She should have known, she should have listened to her gut that something was wrong but then Belle brings up Zelena’s plan to them and she has other things she needs to worry about than Hook’s bad mood.

But she should have, she fucking should have. 

“I can’t trust you now. How could I?” She shouts at him and he just hangs his head in resignation. It’s equally satisfying and annoying that he’s just  _ taking _ this from her. All of the hurt of the last few days, all of his distance and now this? All over this? 

He should have told her. 

_ But Zelena blackmailed him. _

He should have told her. 

_ He was cursed and he didn’t want to hurt her. _

He should have told her. 

_ His first instinct, however misguided, was to protect her son.  _

He should have told her.

She’s mad. She’s so fucking mad. This is the entire reason she chained him up at the top of that beanstalk, the reason she won’t give in to his advances, the reason she ignores her attraction to him. She can’t trust him. She can’t trust anyone. She’s the only one that can keep Henry safe, she never should have relied on anyone else for that. 

She was right all along. She needs to take Henry and go back to New York where she can keep him safe. New York where there’s no magic and witches, no pirates and princes. Nothing. She can protect him from the real world, she doesn’t need anything here to do that. She never should have brought him back here, all it has brought them is pain. All it has done is  _ hurt _ . 

(But she  _ knows  _ he was trying to protect Henry. She  _ knows _ that he wasn’t lying about getting the message and finding her again in New York. She knows that. But it’s easier to leave if she doesn’t acknowledge it.) 

“As content as you were in that city it wasn’t real.” He finally says and her heart skips a beat when he says it.

“It was real for me, for him. Everything that happened, happened.” She says immediately, pushing away the voice in the back of her head that knows he’s right. 

“Minus all the things you’d forgotten. Part of you is not the real you. And like it or not, the big part of you and Henry belongs in this town.” 

“Yeah, the part of us that’s always in danger.” Because he may be right but she is too. They were happy and safe in New York. (Except for the fact that she let a Flying fucking money into their lives, into her home, into her bed and her heart.) “We’re leaving.”

“What does the boy think?” 

“He’s a kid. He wants chocolate milk in his cereal. I’m his mother. I know what’s best for him.”

“What’s best for him? Or for you?” He turns to her. No. She hates it when he does this, she fucking hates it. He’s always fucking pushing her, pushing her towards magic, pushing her to come back to Storybrook, pushing her towards accepting what she  _ doesn’t want to _ . 

“Excuse me?” 

“You’ve taken care of the boy quite well here. You can talk about danger all you like, but it isn’t that. So, tell me, what is it? Why are you so scared of staying? I think it’s because you can see a future here. A happy one.” Every word is a punch to the gut, a skipped heart beat. He’s saying everything she doesn’t want to hear.

“Let me guess -- with you?” She bites back, trying to hurt him. 

She sees him in the water and all of her spite and hurt vanishes and she  _ panics. _

No.

Nonononono. She tugs on him, tries to wrench him from the water with all of her might, tries to magic the water away but her heart is pounding too fast, panic has already set in and her magic is little more than a frantic energy under her skin. She can’t--she can’t save him. He stops struggling and her hands are shaking, her knuckles pained from the force of wrenching on his jacket, she can hear the stitches tearing with the force that she yanks at him with. 

He’s dying. 

He’s dying and she can’t do a fucking thing about it and she’s so mad she could kill him.

Screw him for making her care about him, screw him for forcing himself into her life, for smiling warmly at her, for caring. For making her care. 

She can’t lose anyone else.

She’s already fighting back the tears by time she’s able to wrench him out of the water and she scrambles down into the mud next to him. She shakes him and shakes him and shakes him and he’s still not moving. He’s  _ so still. _

“Killian, come back to me.” She says between shouting his name but there’s nothing, no quirk of the lips, no raised brow. 

She can’t lose him. He’s...he’s her friend and she hates him sometimes, hates that he knows her well enough to call her out on her bullshit. He’s been the only constant in her life for the past few weeks, always by her side, always  _ there _ for her. He’s always there, no matter what she needs, and when she needs to be alone he gives her her space. He’s the only one who knows what happened with Walsh in New York, and the only one she can be honest with half the time because he understands what it means to scratch, claw, and steal to survive and that’s just something her parents could never understand.

Killian knows what it means to be lost, abandoned. He knows that it means to have nothing and knows why it’s so precious that she has things in her life and that’s why he’s so mad at her for trying to run. She knows it. She doesn’t need him, but god she  _ wants _ him in her life as if that isn’t terrifying enough. And he has no reason to stay in her life, there’s nothing keeping him here except for her. There’s no obligation, he just likes  _ Emma _ and she doesn’t understand why and that terrifies her. He  _ found  _ her in New York, he didn’t have to. 

Now he’s dying like Neal and she won’t lose him too.

“Son of a bitch.”

She pinches his nose and tilts his jaw back and presses her mouth to his, blowing air into his lungs. The frantic energy beneath her skin dies down and there’s a pulse that runs through her and it feels  _ wrong _ and suddenly she’s a little lightheaded and short of breath. Leaning on him, her fingers clutch at his jaw, and  _ god why isn’t he waking up? _

_ (“She cursed me. My lips, actually.”) _

“Hook. Come back to me.” She whispers against his skin, stroking along the side of his neck, one hand fisted in his jacket as her heart lodges itself in her throat. 

The moment he twitches and begins to couch she untenses, her heart begins to calm and her lungs draw in a stuttered gasp of air. He’s alive and choking but god the relief she feels is overwhelming and she can’t help herself. Brushing wet hair off of his face, she lets herself stroke down his cheekbone, left hand still with a deathgrip on his lapels as realization draws in his eyes. 

“What did you do?” He asks, voice hoarse from the water, “What did you do?!” 

“Shut up.” She shakes her head, hair falling down to frame his face, his hand on her wrist and she needs a moment. Just a moment to feel his chest rise and fall beneath her, to run her thumb along the side of his neck, to feel his pulse, to  _ be here _ and  _ be alive _ . 

“Emma--” He starts, gripping her wrist but she shakes her head and uses the hand on the side of his neck to help him sit up. 

“Are you okay?” Once he’s sat up, without thinking she brushes more wet hair off of his face with her fingers, running them back to cup the side of his face, her thumb on his cheek. Now that she’s let herself  _ touch _ him she doesn’t want to let go, she needs to feel that rise and fall of his chest. 

“I’m fine, but Emma--”

“No.” She shakes her head and stands up, hand still fisted in his vest as she helps him to his feet. 

“You shouldn’t have done that.” He says, voice still hoarse as he sags against her. The only thing keeping him standing is her grip on his vest and the arm she wraps around his waist. She shouldn’t delight in the feel of his weight against hers, how close he is. And she can’t even enjoy it because he’s dripping onto her and he’s  _ freezing _ and clammy and struggling to stand.

( _ “Well, that’s a plausible excuse for grabbing me, but next time don’t stand on ceremony.” _ )

“Well I did it, end of discussion.” She releases the grip on his vest finally, and begins dragging him back towards the bug. “We have to get back to my parents.”


	22. Killian - Bleeding Through

As the panic sets in, Killian tries to think of all avenues, all possible outcomes for this that won’t end in pain and he’s...it’s too much. He wants to make the right decision, but it’s been so long since he’s stood on his own like this, so long since he’s had people in his life, liabilities to be held over his head. He doesn’t know what the right decision is. He doesn’t remember how to make the right decision, or if he ever really has before.

He knows he cannot allow her to take away a part of Emma, the part that makes her who she is. He knows that  _ light _ that exists in her, the sweet tingle of the love she was born from, how warm and pure and  _ good _ it is. It’s a part of what makes her so special, light intrinsically woven into her being. She’s tried so hard to push it away and she’s just now accepting it, even a small part of it, and he cannot allow it. He won’t be a part of it. 

Liam would know what to do. Liam would know what the right thing to do is inherently, he would not waver. Liam was always the goal he strived for, but he would never be Liam. He doesn’t know what the right thing to do is and he  _ needs _ someone but he doesn’t have anyone to--

David. David would know. David, who is so much like Liam in their stubbornness and their hard headed nature. But also David with his innate sense of right and wrong, his strong moral compass. He would know what to do. 

He tries to find David before Emma, before he digs himself a hole he cannot get out of but of-bloody-course she’s at the loft instead of him and Snow. And he does the only thing he knows how to do, what his instincts tell him to do and he  _ lies _ and it makes him sick to his stomach because Emma looks at him the way he’s always wanted her to and it’s a damn farce. 

She takes another step in his direction, she’s  _ proud _ of him and he’s lying to her. If she really knew what he did to Ariel she would be ashamed. He certainly is, and even more so knowing that her faith in him is a lie. A trick. He promised her he wouldn’t trick her, he doesn’t want false praise.

God the lies slip past his lips so easy. 

“And, Killian,” his name on her tongue has never felt so sour, “Whatever happened this past year, whatever you're not telling me... I don't care. I'm tired of living in the past.”

She’s extending an olive branch to him and for once he can’t accept it. He walks away from her and the weight of her gaze on his back is foregin. Usually she’s the one walking away. 

It’s barely been a few hours and already he’s tangled in his lies without a way out. Like being stranded at sea with no land in any direction. He watches them sit and eat dinner together as a family, where even just this morning he sat care-free with Henry, betting food on loaded dice. Where he sat and spoke with Emma well into the wee hours of the morning. 

Perhaps he’s been fooling himself. Deluding himself into thinking he could be a part of that life, that it was something Emma could even offer with all of the blood that stains his hands, all of the people he’s hurt. Perhaps Regina had been right. Villains don’t get happy endings. 

He attempts to sequester himself in his room the following day, wallowing in that bottle of cinnamon whiskey Emma left behind and trying to occupy himself with the novels Belle lent him. But they were all romance novels, and he didn’t have the heart for that at the moment. He tried, until Elizabeth rejecting Mr. Darcy hit a little too close to the heart and he tossed the damn thing across the room. 

Emma finds him around noon, and Killian tries to ignore the knocking at first, but she  _ persists _ . 

“We really need to get you a phone.” Emma complains the moment Killian opens the door and then promptly shoves her way into his room. 

“Oh please, come in.” Killian rolls his eyes but leaves the door open, moving to sit on the end of his bed as Emma instantly finds the bottle half-empty on his dresser. She picks it up and gives him an odd look.

“It’s barely one in the afternoon and you’re already drinking?” He grunts a response because he  _ cannot look at her _ .

“Hey,” Emma walks over and taps the side of his face and the gesture is startling enough that he does look up at her. “Sober up, Regina called and needs us at her place tonight.” 

“Whatever would the Queen summon us for.” 

“She didn’t say, you know her. She summons, you’re expected to show up, no questions asked.” Emma teases, but he doesn’t have the heart to return her smile. “Do you want to ride over with me later?”

_ Yes _ .

“No, that’s alright, Swan.” Killian looks off to his right and out the window because if he looks at her he will give in and he refuses to let her get hurt. He refuses to hurt her. 

“Do you even know where Regina lives?” She asks, walking back over to the dresser. Without her gaze on him, he looks at her and admires the way the incoming sunlight catches the white blonde streaks of her hair. 

“Aye, I’ve been there before.”

“When?”

“Long time ago, Cora.” Killian waves his hand and she nods in understanding. 

“Well,” she sounds a bit uncertain but shrugs, “meet us over there at eight then, alright?”

“I’ll be there.” He walks her the short distance to the door and tries not to feel any more guilty at the odd look she gives him over her shoulder as she heads across the hall to her own room. 

It’s not until a good half hour later that he realizes she took the bottle with her. 

“I can’t trust you now. How can I?” She shouts and it bites and it’s harsh and he takes it because he deserves her ire. He couldn’t make the right decision, he knew he wouldn’t be able to. But he tried, damnit. He doesn’t care that David has gone back to mistrusting him, he doesn’t care about the derision in Snow White’s eyes. 

What he does care about is Emma. He doesn’t expect her to like it, but he wants her to understand. He was trying to protect them, he was trying his best. 

But no. She’s not mad about him trying to save Henry. She’s not mad he didn’t tell her about the curse, she’s not even mad that he fucked up trying to save the boy. She’s finally found a scapegoat for wanting to leave Storybrooke, something she can use to excuse herself from the town, to flee back to New York and leave all of this behind. 

She’s found an excuse to run. To run from her magic, from her parents and her family. From him. From whatever future lies here for her. 

He’s already made the mistake of trying to run from his future multiple times. He ran from it away to Neverland, unable to face a future without Milah, and he ran from it when he left the Charming’s to their own devices back in the forest. He ran from his problems, and it only ever brought him strife.

They both know she’s not running towards something, but away from it. 

“As content as you were in that city it wasn’t real.” He finally says after listening to her excuses for the twenty minutes it took them to get from the hospital to the witch’s home in the country.

“It was real for me, for him. Everything that happened, happened.” She deflects but he pushes on. 

“Minus all the things you’d forgotten. Part of you is not the real you. And like it or not, the big part of you and Henry belongs in this town.” He tries to reason with her but she shakes him off again.

“Yeah, the part of us that’s always in danger. We’re leaving.”

“What does the boy think?” 

“He’s a kid. He wants chocolate milk in his cereal. I’m his mother. I know what’s best for him.”

“What’s best for him? Or for you?” He turns towards her and she literally stops in place for a moment, seemingly thrown by his words. 

“Excuse me?” 

“You’ve taken care of the boy quite well here. You can talk about danger all you like, but it isn’t that. So, tell me, what is it? Why are you so scared of staying? I think it’s because you can see a future here. A happy one.” 

He tries not to push her too hard, he always tries to be careful with her feelings, with her emotions. He doesn’t want to hurt her but she’s being selfish and it’s going to hurt Henry and her parents and he can’t let her do that. 

He sees what she could have here, what she already has if she would just open herself up to it. It may not be picturesque, and it may not be what she always dreamed of, but she has a life here, people that love her and she’s rejecting it because she’s scared. He doesn’t want to hurt her, he’s not trying to be cruel with his words he just wants her to accept herself.

“Let me guess -- with you?” This is always how she lashes out when she’s backed into a corner. As if she wasn’t the one to kiss him in Neverland, as if she hasn’t sought him out. He’s not ashamed of his feelings for her. 

After all of that. After drowning and her  _ kissing _ him, and saving the babe from Zelena. After all of that how she can look at him with a smile (and god is it a beautiful smile) and happily say “I won’t need it in New York” is beyond him. 

For the first time, she turns from him and he doesn’t understand her. They saved the day, they defeated the witch, the babe is safe. She’s  _ happy _ and she’s still going to run. He doesn’t regret a single thing he’s done for her, doesn’t regret coming back to save her, can’t regret trading Jolly for the bean because it  _ saved _ her and Henry and the town.

But it hurts. It hurts to see her throw all of it away. And It hurts that he’s going to stand by with a smile on his face and let it happen, because he’s desperate enough for her that he will take all he can get, even if it’s only a few more days. He loves her, she knows it, and she’s going to leave him anyway. 

Wasn’t she the one that asked him to stay in the first place, all those months ago standing in the diner, the entire town at her back?  _ “So, you can join us and be a part of something, or you can do what you can do best, and be alone.”  _

He’s tried everything to convince her to stay, to be a part of this life waiting for her, but he won’t delude himself into thinking he can  _ make _ her do anything she does not want to do. But it’s not like it was when he left her in this world last time. Then he had his assurances, the thing he told himself every time he began to miss her:  _ At least she’s happy _ . She won’t be happy in New York, not knowing her family is here missing her, the boy won’t be happy and he won’t make it easy on her if she truly drags him away from this place.

She finds him a few nights later, after she has relocated her things back to her parents’ apartment and Henry has gone off with the Queen. He’s been at the bar for a few glasses before she finds her way to him, sliding into the stool next to him at the bar with a quip he doesn’t care to listen to. 

He shouldn’t let her keep doing this to him, giving him  _ hope _ and then ripping it away from him again. He shouldn’t have given her all the power because at this point all she has used it to do is hurt him but--but he looks at her to spew something biting and sees her face. She’s smiling, but he’s familiar with the weight of her gaze, how her mouth turns down hard at the corners, how her brow pinches and her eyes seem to droop when she’s upset. 

“What is it, Swan?” He asks, unable to help himself. 

“Does something have to be wrong for us to hang out?” She asks, trying to be cheeky, but he’s not  _ that _ daft.

“If you’re the one finding me, then yes.” Killian turns towards her, taking stock of her to see if there’s any clues to her mood. She’s slumped over the bar, looking at him over her shoulder, left elbow on the bar supporting her head. She’s shed her jacket, and the creamy white sweater clings to her, showing the raised shoulders (and exposing a line of skin between the back of her sweater and her trousers.) Whatever it is, she’s tense. 

She doesn’t give him a verbal response to his question, but the look she gives him tells him everything he needs to know. She just needs someone, like she did after Neal’s passing, like she did that night in New York. He wants to reject her, to leave her here to deal with whatever it is on her own...but he knows he would never do that to her, never abandon her like that. Perhaps she knows it as well. 

The bartender refills their drinks and Killian changes the topic onto something innocuous. He watches her expression shift from guarded into greatful and it’s enough to ease the bitterness he feels. 

Swan works through drinks like it’s air and she’s finished her fourth and is ordering her fifth when he stops her, suggesting she slow down a bit. Of course, she doesn’t take kindly to that, bitches about being able to hold her liquor and throwing back another glass while glaring at him the entire time and...well he’d be a little turned on if he weren’t so pissed off. 

He rolls his eyes and turns away from her glare, but she keeps staring at him. Thinking it’s a glare, he whips his head towards her to make a comment and...oh. 

She’s turned towards him now, hair thrown over one shoulder and the green of her eyes is barely a thin rim around her large pupils. Those damn lashes of hers sweep low over her eyes, her cheeks hold the delicious hint of a flush to them and already he can feel his breathing speed up a bit. As if unconsciously, her tongue slips out to wet her lips and she’s leaning towards him and--

“Emma.” He says in a voice he wishes were stronger and presses a hand to her shoulder, preventing her from leaning any closer to him. She blinks hard and then pulls back, shaking her head. 

He should have let her do it. He’s wanted her for so long but...not like this. Not drunk and upset about something else. He no longer wants to be the person people go to when they’re running from something else. 

“Sorry.” she mutters, rubbing her forehead. 

He walks her home, tucked under his arm to keep her upright, and convinces himself this will be enough when she runs off again. 


	23. Emma - A Curious Thing

Things calm down afterwards. There’s a few days, while the town welcomes her brother into the world, where all that there is to do is sit around and  _ exist _ . Henry and she finish setting up the baby’s things in the loft, Henry spends more and more time with Regina, and her parents are head over heels for the new baby. 

Watching them with him is strange for her. 

At first, as she watched her mother hold the baby in the hospital room, she remembered what it was like to hold Henry for the first time. When she stopped the doctor, and held her arms out for the wiggling newborn and he was in her arms and everything just fell into place. She felt so much love for Henry in that moment, it was perfect,  _ he _ was perfect. 

But that wasn’t real, was it?

Because she also remembers hearing him cry and every cell in her body longing for him, for her son, but knowing she couldn’t keep him, knowing she couldn’t love him the way he needed. Knowing she wasn’t capable of love like that, wasn’t capable of taking care of him. She was a fuck up and she wasn’t going to fuck up her innocent child. 

The fake layer of memories in her brain from Regina are both a blessing and a curse. The knowledge of what could have been juxtaposed against was actually was, strikes a fissure in her heart. Especially when the reality is so much colder and darker and  _ lonelier. _ She wishes the fake memories were real, they hurt less. She wasn't such a failure in them. 

Later, when they bring the baby home and her parents fawn over the kid, she tries not to think about it. She tries desperately to push the feelings away, to ignore the memories burning at her mind. But her father holds the baby and whispers promises of love and a future to them, and  _ why does he get it but she didn’t? _ Why does her brother get a life of love and happiness and she was left to suffer, all alone without love for most of her life?

(“ _ Our daughter is a beautiful, smart, amazing woman whom I love very much, and of whom I could not be more proud. But she's all grown up. And...as much as I wanna pretend I'm okay with that, I'm not. We missed it, David. What we have with her is unique, but it's not what I wanted. We were cheated out of everything...her first step, her first word, her first smile. We missed it all.” _ )

It’s selfish. It’s horribly selfish and the thoughts feel gross and stick to her like thick tar, but she’ll always be that girl watching the other kids get driven away by loving parents. She’ll always be the unchosen child, the one that was  _ given up _ , the one left for dead on the side of the road. She knows they tried to give her her best chance, she does, but it didn’t work out that way, did it?

Telling herself that won’t take away the hurt of watching her parents with the new baby go away. It doesn’t erase the feeling of not being good enough, the feeling that she failed them somehow as a daughter, failed to give them the family they wanted. It feels like she’s being replaced, and it’s not fair to think that because she doesn’t let them be her parents half the time anyway, she shouldn’t get to pull the daughter card here, but she still feels what she feels. 

She doesn’t like feeling like this. New York will help, she’ll be hours away and won’t have to suffer every day watching her brother get the childhood she should have had. 

Henry’s staying with Regina and her parents are busy with the baby and she finds herself wanting to see Hook. She tries the inn first, but there’s nobody in his room and he’s not downstairs. Finally she finds him at the Rabbit Hole, slumped over the bar nursing a glass of rum. 

“Drinking alone?” she asks, laying her jacket over the back of the barstool next to him and sitting down. He barely glances at her, just huffs and takes a sip from his glass. 

“I’m not alone, I’m surrounded by my closest friends, don’t you see?” He gestures towards the other patrons of the bar off handedly, none of whom are even looking at him.

“Yea, didn’t know you and Leroy were such close friends.” She scoots the stool closer to him so she can hear him better over the sound of the other patrons. The bartender comes by and she asks for a glass of rum as well. 

He turns towards her then, and she can see him ready for some offhand comment, probably something rude given the glower on his face, but he looks at her and then stops. It’s not until she gets her glass from the bartender and downs half of it in one gulp that he finally speaks. 

“What is it, Swan?”

“Does something have to be wrong for us to hang out?” She teases, heart not in it.

“If you’re the one finding me, then yes.” Killian turns towards her fully so his legs are spread around her stool, his feet resting on the lower bar next to her own. If she twisted towards him he’d be bracketing her body. She doesn’t turn towards him, doesn’t respond.

They drink in relative quiet until she’s feeling a little hazy and manages to space out for the entire last three minutes of his speech on the merits of mermaids compared to sirens and nymphs. She knows he’s mad at her, knows that she’s the reason for the tension in his shoulders, and how he slumps over the bar. But she has a lot of shit going on right now and she just wishes he would ignore it and be her friend for a little bit. She wants to forget the pain in her chest at watching her parents with their new baby, at Henry finally being with his  _ real _ mother, the one that actually raised him. 

It’s not fair to expect this of him, not after everything she’s put him through over the past few days. Not after the things she’s said. It’s all so selfish, but she wants it anyway. She’s been selfish a lot lately.

She finishes her fourth glass and raises her hand for another one when Killian reaches out and catches her wrist with his hook, drawing her hand back down.

“Excuse you.” She tries to pull her wrist from the curve of his hook, but he presses the tip down to the table so she’s stuck. 

“If you have anymore, love, I’ll have to carry you back to your parents’ apartment.” His voice is gentle, like it always is with her, but she can hear the edge to it, the tension he’s trying to withhold. 

“You think I can’t hold my liquor?” She snaps at him, glaring until he releases his hold on her wrist. “Please. I could drink you under the table.”

“Oh I’d like to see you try.” He scoffs but she can hear the grin in his voice. 

Emma orders another glass from the bartender and when he brings it by, she turns towards Hook, catching his eye and throwing the shot back in one, staring him down. Licking her lips, Emma is suddenly struck by the memory of drinking rum alone in her apartment and chasing that swell of desire it always gave her, drinking more and more trying to remember the memory of the taste of his mouth back in Neverland. And god the  _ dreams _ she had of him…

He’s even handsome under the dim light of the bar, and up close she can see the sharp cut of his cheekbone even more prominent. She could reach out and run her fingers through the hair along his jaw (and wonder what it would feel like scraped against the soft flesh of her inner thighs, along her neck, her chest.) He looks over at her, pupils are blown wide in his too-blue eyes, his mouth slightly parted, and it would be so easy to just lean forward and press her mouth to his. So easy to lick into his mouth, chase that tongue he’s always running along his lower lip, scrape her hands back through his hair. 

If this is the last time she’s going to see him, if she’s really going back to New York she should do it. Once, just once, she should give in and take what she’s wanted the entire time she’s known him. 

She would do it too, she has no qualms about one night stands. If this were New York, if this were Boston, Emma would run her hand along his thigh, lean into his space and take him back to his place. She can see it, pushing him against the door of his room at Granny’s, brushing that heavy ass coat off, spreading her fingers out along his exposed chest. 

And god does she want it. 

She wants him to hold her up against that door, press her down into the mattress and have his way with her. She wants to be on top, she wants him on top, she wants him between her legs and in her mouth. She could just take him into the bathroom and get them off quick and dirty, she could roll around in the sheets with him for hours if he let her, she could--

But she looks at him, and sees his feelings there behind the thinly guarded hurt and knows she can’t do it. She can’t sleep with him, can’t fuck him, can’t kiss him because she’s leaving and he has feelings for her and it’s not fair to him to use him like that without being able to reciprocate those feelings. It’s not that she doesn’t have...some sort of feelings for him, but she’s leaving Storybrooke, she’s leaving him, and it’s not fair to him for her to take a part of him with her no matter how much she wants it. 

She doesn’t realize she’s leaned into his space until his hand presses against her shoulder, holding her in place. “Emma.” He breathes, and the hot rum-tinted breath against her face holds everything she longs to take. But god she can’t do it, can’t be the reason for more pain in his eyes. 

Emma pulls back, shaking her head to clear the thoughts but the world spins as she does so. 

“Sorry,” she manages, pressing a hand to her head and willing the world to stop spinning.

“That’s it, let’s go.” Killian huffs and turns around to stand up, causing Emma’s vertigo to take a sharp twist. 

“No I’m--”

“I swear if you say you’re fine, I’m just going to call your father down here to collect you.” Killian offers her a hand and, reluctantly, she takes it, using it to help her stand up. A minute of cold air and she’ll be fine, really, but on the street he wraps his arm around her waist and begins walking her towards the loft. He’s warm all along her side, his hand broad and big against her ribcage, and maybe...maybe she doesn’t have to sober up just yet. 

She can’t take all she wants from him, but maybe she can steal just this moment for herself. 


	24. Killian - Enchanted Forest

“I don’t think I’ve ever been a part of anything.” She says to him, and perhaps she’s forgotten. Perhaps she doesn’t remember what she said to him before Neverland, words that he cannot forget.

_ “It might be stupid, it might be crazy but we’re doing it. So...you can join us and be a part of something, or you can do what you do best and be alone.” _

What happened to turn her from the woman who spoke those words with such life and vigor, to the Emma Swan afraid to stay for her family? What scared her so much she’s running again? Killian knows wayward souls, he’s been one for so long, he understands. He understands not having a home, having nothing to return to but...but she has one and she’s turning away from it. There’s nothing left for her back in New York, she’s not running towards something, she’s running away. 

_ (“Neal abandoned me”) _

_ (“I haven't seen Neal since he left me in jail”) _

“You could be.” He offers. 

She closes the book and shifts so she’s facing him. 

“Look, when I was a kid, I ran away. It's just what I did. But the first time I did it, I had the same exact thought. I wondered, "What if I'm making a mistake? What if I miss this place?"” She’s usually so guarded of her past, he’s not even sure what happened with her and bae, and the most he found out about her upbringing was from the short conversation with David before he left them back in the forest but she’s opening up to him. 

“Did you?” 

“Not the first time. Not any time.” and god he  _ knows _ . He understands. He’s known this pain of hers since they first met, since she stared at the carvings next to Bae’s bedside with mirrored pain, since she held his cutlass in her hand. He’s always understood her, even without the knowledge she’s giving him now.

“So you just keep running.” 

“I learned something a long time ago, Hook. Home is the place when you leave, you just miss it.” She says softly, and it’s like a stab to his heart. The black swan etched into the inside of his left elbow burns. He spent an entire year running, trying to forget how much he missed her. “So, yeah, I'm gonna keep running until I feel that.” 

“So you're just gonna leave your parents, then. Do you even care about them, or anyone in this town?” The words finally spill out, the answer he hasn’t been able to understand this whole time. If she cares, won’t she  _ miss _ them? Won’t she...would she miss him? Did she? 

“Of course I care.” Her words are soft and filled with so much kindness that it makes his hurt that much worse. If she cared then why would she--? “What the hell is that?”

She’s so stubborn, she’s so damn stubborn. Just like David...and Liam and Milah. He tries to stop her, but the barn doors fly open and they’re getting sucked in like a whirlpool in the sea. He thrusts the hook into the soil and grips her wrist as tight as he can to anchor them, to keep them from falling in the portal. But she’s wearing gloves and he looks down at her and he’s never seen her  _ scared _ , never heard her  _ scream _ like that. His jacket rips when she’s sucked into it and there is no hesitation, no second thought before he’s following her through the portal. He won’t leave her. 

The smell of Misthaven’s woods is so distinct that he’d know it anywhere. There’s a bit of dread in him, but mostly he’s just...he’s just fucking annoyed. There is always some sort of crisis happening. She’s prattling on about some sort of Wizard when the Black Knights come by and he spins her bodily, pressing her against the nearest tree for cover. He’d likely blend in but her hair stands out too much against the green of the woods, if one of them glances over...

Emma squirms a bit against him and it’s then that he realizes how close they are. His hips are slotted right up against hers, and her pants leave little to his overzealous imagination. Her hair tickles his face and he can smell  _ her _ through the sweet and earthy layer of what must be some sort of perfume. 

She’s so close and she’s looking at him through those dark lashes, she’s all he can smell, all he can feel. Her tongue wets her bottom lip and he could just lean forward and--

“I think they’re gone.” she says gently, breaking him from his stupor. 

She looks damn stunning, of course she does. She could be buried in burlap and still look like a vision. He tries to guide her as best he can, but the lass clearly isn’t used to walking so much, let alone walking in this world. She’s out of her element, knowing how uncomfortable the Land Without Magic makes him, he doesn’t have to imagine how she feels being here. 

“Don’t worry, Swan. I know my way around these parts quite well.” He tells her, ushering her by another small village on their way towards the Dark One’s castle. 

“God, how much farther?” She groans, adjusting herself again in the corset. 

“Probably an hour's time, I’d wager.” She groans again. When he looks back next, she’s stopped again, watching people mill about in the village. He walks back to her, pressing a hand to her back to urge her onward. 

But she has a look on her face he hasn’t seen before. She seems...amazed almost. She glances around the village, at the banners strung between shopfronts, at the children running around, the livestock herded behind one of the shops. There’s a certain light in her eyes he hasn’t seen before and...and he likes it. She’s beautiful, she’s always beautiful, but it’s unguarded, unmarred, and something pure and wonderful. 

“Come, love.” He tugs her again, this time smiling at her to urge her on down the path. She steals one last glance at the village and then falls in line next to him.

The last place in this realm he wants to be is anywhere near the Crocodile, but Emma is right. If anyone can get them home it would be him. That doesn’t make his instant aversion go away, doesn’t make his skin crawl any less to see the  _ monster _ that killed Milah here in his peeling dripping flesh. 

He’s lost his need for revenge, but that certainly doesn’t make him hate the Crocodile any less. 

He lets Emma do the talking, for if he tries to speak too much to the creature he’ll say something he regrets. However, Emma doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of  _ not telling people about the future _ so maybe he should rethink that plan. 

It’s quite jarring when he first sees himself. He doesn’t even spot himself at first, it’s Emma’s little gasp and grin that clues him into it. He steers her towards the back of the inn, and keeps his back to his former self, his head ducked so as not to meet eyes with any of his crew that may be lingering. 

That’s him alright,  _ Captain Hook _ .  _ Hook _ with his arm around some bar wench, Hook with revenge in his heart and blood on his hands. How he ever thought he could return to being that man, he’ll never know. And it feels so distant, being  _ that _ person who partied in taverns and slept with anything with legs that looked enough like Milah to pass in his drunken haze. 

He just means for her to keep an eye on him, to lurk in the corner and track him if he leaves but she’s removing her outerwear and adjusting her breasts in her corset and--no.  _ No.  _ He’s worked too damn hard to change, he doesn’t want her to see that man let alone be with him. He won't let her...she can’t...and  _ Hook _ doesn’t have the same reservations Killian does, he doesn’t know that Emma is  _ so much more _ than something dirty, quick and impersonal.

“You and I both know I’m his type.” She says with all the confidence in the world, not knowing how rarely he has gone after blondes in his life. 

“Swan, that man sitting there -- you don’t know him.” He smiles past the unease he feels, but the determination stays on her face so he caps it with a warning. “Just be careful.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re jealous.'' She says, smiling and walking away is all he can do to stop himself from throwing the cloak on her and ushering her out. She’s a grown woman, she can make her own decisions, and the fates know he doesn’t have the power to stop her but...but...

He doesn’t  _ think _ he’s jealous, not really. Just clings to the low-level fear he holds at what she may find if she looks too closely at his past self, what demons she’ll see that will scare her away. Hook is everything Killian hates about himself, he’s responsible for the skeletons in his closet that haunt him. He’s not proud of that man.

But Jolly. Gods did he miss her. He can feel the steady hum of her enchantment, the little thrill she gives him when she recognizes him. The familiar smell of his quarters hits him hard, almost bringing tears to his eyes because he  _ misses her _ . She’s...she’s the only home he’s ever known and he hasn’t seen her in so long. 

But he missed Emma too, and he had hundreds of years with Jolly. Being with Emma, being a part of her life, was more fulfilling than all the years he had with Jolly combined and he hates that. He loves Jolly but he had to choose and...and Jolly understood. She wanted him to make the right choice. 

Then Emma brings him back and he has to  _ watch _ and  _ listen _ as she kisses the daylights out of his past self. And yea, okay, so he’s jealous. But  _ he _ doesn’t deserve Emma,  _ he’s _ not worthy to kiss her, to hold her... _ touch _ her. She’s signing into his mouth, gripping him and it’s too much. 

He doesn’t regret the punch,  _ he _ certainly deserves it. 

“That was reckless,” He tells her as they make their way out of town and towards Midas’ castle.

“Seriously?” She rolls her eyes, “You’re not my dad, Hook. I’m a big girl, I can handle myself.”

“You don’t know what he would have done, what if--.”

“What?” she grabs his arm, stopping them in the middle of the dirt road. “What was he going to do to me?”

“I don’t know, Emma, he could have--”

“He’s still  _ you _ .” She says, raising her brow at him, “I know you’re different people, but even back then, would you have forced yourself on a woman? Made her do something she didn’t want to?”

“No!” He scoffs, “How could you think that?”

“I don’t think that.” She hits his arm lightly, “I know you wouldn’t do that. So I don’t know why you’re concerned that he was going to like...have his way with me or something.”

“I don’t…” Killian huffs out a frustrated groan, running his free hand back through his hair, “I don’t, Swan.”

“Then what?” She puts her hands on her hips, and bites her bottom lip to abate the grin spreading across her face. “Didn’t know you were the jealous type.”

“I’m not jealous.” Killian scoffs at her. “I was just concerned for your well being.”

“Oh yea? I think you’re forgetting something, Hook.”

“And what is that?”

She leans in towards him, a large grin still plastered across her features (and wow he loves when she smiles.) “My superpower.” Her voice is quiet and soft and she stares at him, “I know when you’re lying.” 

He purses his lips and glares.

“Bloody Hell, woman.” Killian turns away from her with pursed lips and stalks down towards the path. He hears her laugh (was that a  _ giggle? _ ) behind him and then she’s running up next to him and pestering him. “I knew it!”


	25. Emma - The Enchanted Forest

She doesn’t want to talk about it. She doesn’t want to go through this with him again, but by time he finds her she’s so tired of avoiding it, so tired of beating around the bush. 

“So you're just gonna leave your parents, then. Do you even care about them...or anyone in this town?” He asks and her heart may break a little seeing that pain so clearly on his face, in his words, and knowing she’s the one that caused it. That she’s still causing it, every day. 

“Of course I care.” She replies and the words are heavy but she needs him to know that...that it’s not him, it’s her. ( _ And how many times did social workers tell her that every time an adoption fell through, or a family decided not to take her?) _

Emma  _ hates _ the Enchanted Forest. She’s never been an outdoor kind of person. It’s damp and wet and mud cakes her shoes and her jeans. It could be any forest really, they all look the same but...but there is something here, something feels different. Kind of like the low-level tingle under her skin when she uses her magic but...but it’s everywhere. 

There’s the sound of horses and then Hook’s pressing her front to a tree, practically molding himself to her back. 

“Black Knights.” He says quietly, Hook and hand on either side of her against the bark and  _ oh _ yea. She can feel that hum of magic in the tree itself. The knights pass but he doesn’t ease off of her. She lets herself enjoy it for just a moment: the feeling of him plastered to her backside, his breath on her face, his  _ hips _ on hers.

Glancing over her shoulder, she meets his gaze and he’s  _ so close _ . His breath is warm on her face, his  _ scent _ , something masculine bathed in the salt of the sea, is all the more inviting here in the forest. She glances down at his lips, and maybe his face leans a little closer to hers, eyes dropping to her own lips, his body pressing hers just a little tighter to the tree. 

“I think they’re gone." She says, biting back a smile, and it takes him a moment before he’s stepping back from her. 

“Sorry, love.” He clears his throat. 

“Who are they anyway?” She looks over at him, delighting in the spots of pink along his cheeks. 

“Queen’s men.”

“Regina?” 

“Aye,” he grips her upper arm, trying to drag her away, “they’re ruthless, not to be trifled with, and if they’re here she’s not far behind, come on let’s--”

“Oh no, I have to see this.” She shrugs off his grip and starts jogging off in the direction that the riders left in. 

“Bloody hell, Emma!” He shouts at her back, and she just shushes him, continuing to follow the sound of the hooves. The closer they get, she can hear shouting.

“What is that?” she asks, but he just shrugs past her, beginning to crouch down in the underbrush. 

“There’s a small village just past these bushes, now, hush.” He says over his shoulder, and she rolls her eyes but follows suit, crouching down next to him. 

Regina looks ridiculous. (“Not Regina, love. The Evil Queen.” Killian reminds her.) The pant suits are one thing, but she looks like...god she looks like she stepped out of the damn costume supply shop. She’s in an absurd hat, leather pants and a fucking red tail coat. She’s seen drawings of her in Henry’s book but this is something else. No wonder none of them ever bat an eye at Killian’s outfit.

“Are you kidding me?” She exclaims when Hook starts tossing the clothes at her. “We do not have time for a costume change.”

“What we don’t have time for, is arguing about this, now get changed.” She glared at him as he waved her on, hooking his...hook into his belt. 

“I don’t even know how to put most of this on.” Emma glared. Hook stepped forward with a grin.

“Well, I can’t say I’ve ever dressed in these clothes myself, but I’m well acquainted with getting women out of them.” He winks at her and Emma scoffs. 

“Okay Casanova,” She looks down at the bundle. “Why’re there two skirts?”

“Here,” He steps forward and takes the bundle from her, draping it over his left arm and handing it back to her piece by piece. “Blouse first, petticoat next, then your skirt and corset. Cloak last, of course.”

“How do I lace this up myself? Didn’t people need help to get into these things?” She holds the corset up and stares at it and the purple ribbon still threaded through the eyelets. Idly she wonders how her waist is going to fit into the damn thing.

“Royal corsets, yes, that’s what handmaidens are for. But you, love, right now are just a beautiful peasant. Working women lace up in the front.”

She is not a fan of getting changed in the middle of the damn forest, she keeps glancing around for someone to peek out from behind a tree and get a free show, but Hook assures her he’ll keep an eye and an ear out. She has to ditch her bra, there’s no room with the corset, and she despairs at leaving the thing in the middle of the woods with her jacket and jeans. It’s expensive and she didn’t exactly bring a lot back with her when she left New York. 

“This corset is too small, Hook.” She shouts over at him, trying to secure the thing closed over the heavy skirt and thin shirt. 

“I assure you, Swan, it’s fine. They’re supposed to be tight.”

It is terribly uncomfortable, and hard to maneuver around in, but she comes out from behind the tree and Kilian seems pleased enough. 

“Your discomfort is a cross I’m willing to bear.” He says, and maybe the discomfort is offset a little by the thrill she gets knowing he can’t keep his eyes off of her cleavage. She’s not even all that annoyed that he’s talking to her boobs for half of the conversation. 

“How do you even know where we’re going?” She asks, taking his offered hand to help her over a fallen log. 

“Well love, the Dark One’s castle is due northeast.” 

“How the hell do you know which way is northeast?” She asks, stopping and leaning back to try and alleviate some of the pressure on her ribcage. 

“If you stop trying to slouch it will be more comfortable.” He stops as well, turning towards her. “There’s the sun, the sun rises in the east, therefore, this way is Northeast.” 

“What if the sun is setting, not rising?” She asks. 

“It’s rising.” He simply says, “You know Emma, back in Storybrooke, that’s your world. This? This is my world, my time. So you can keep fighting me on everything, or, and I know it’s hard, you can just choose to trust me.” 

Emma stares at him, noting the weariness settling into the corners of his expression. She nods in difference. 

“Aye aye, Captain.” He smirks at her before starting off down the road. 

He’s right, of course, this is hard. But it’s not that she doesn’t trust him, of course she does, it’s just...Emma doesn’t like not being in control. This entire world, she doesn’t know right from left here, she doesn’t know Regina anymore, the only thing she does know is Killian. And she doesn’t like relying on other people for things. 

Rumplestiltskin. The fucking Dark One. God she knows shy Killian called him the Crocodile now and why Neal hated this version of his father. It’s so  _ weird _ . This isn’t the limping old man, the creepy frail evil one. He’s...he  _ giggles _ and he’s younger and she’s not sure if he’s rotting or his skin is peeling, but he looks like a monster and talks in rhymes and riddles. It’s fucking fascinating...when he’s not choking Killian out, of course. 

And Belle! When she walks through the door Emma’s reminded both of her sweet friend back in Storybrooke and of the cartoons she watched growing up. 

It’s so interesting and weird to see all of these people she knows in their...natural habitat. In the middle of their stories, to have seen her father young and done up in his princely gear, to see the knights and Regina in her tailcoat. She’s used to seeing Killian dressed like this, she remembers Aurora and Mulan, but to see people she knows in their original forms. It makes it all real somehow, and yet she feels like she’s walking in a dream. 

“I need you to help me with one more thing.” Emma shouts after Rumple. He stops in his tracks and turns towards her with a flourish. 

“I’m not in the business of granting favors, Dearie.” he says, but crossing back over towards them anyway. “What?”

“Can you use your little crystal ball-thing there and help us find him?” She gestures over her shoulder towards Killian, who has kept a large distance between himself and Rumple since they met him. 

“I could kill him for you instead, how about that?” Rumple offers.

Emma just glares until he relents. 

Thankfully, Hook is in-port, and he says that it’s a port near Midas’ castle, so it’s at least in the direction they need to travel. 

She adjusts her boobs in her corset, and Killian looks fucking  _ scandalized _ that she’s showing cleavage, as if he wasn’t staring at her chest only a few hours ago. 

“Wait. What are you doing?” 

“Making sure he stays occupied.” she says, “Shouldn’t be difficult. You and I both know, I’m his type.”

“Swan, that man sitting there, you don’t know him. Just be careful.”

“If I didn’t know any better I’d say you’re jealous.” she says, unable to help the grin because  _ holy shit _ he totally is. He’s fucking jealous of himself and storms out the door pouting. It shouldn’t please her as much as it does, but wow does it do something for her. Other than the petty squabbling between him and Neal back in Neverland, nobody has ever actually been jealous over her before. It’s...well it’s kind of nice. 

Hook? He’s hot. God he’s like every attractive thing about Killian minus any of the  _ feelings _ he has that scare the shit out of her. She goes over, leans over the table with her breasts hanging out and stares down at him. She has the advantage with him for once, knows how he works. She knows he won’t back down from the challenging look she levels at him. He just sits there with his mouth open, licking the inside of his own lips and staring up at her. 

Oh this is going to be fine. 

And it  _ is _ . 

She sits across from him, refusing to look away even as the women at his side try to shower him with attention. It’s easy, they’re just playing poker dice, and she’s familiar enough with it that she participates. She loses her first hand, but watches him roll twice before she realizes what’s going on, remembering something Henry mentioned to her in passing a week or so ago. 

_ (“Killian taught me how to play something called Hasard, but he was cheating with loaded dice. Isn’t that illegal, mom?”) _

When the cup is passed to her, Emma makes a gesture of grabbing the dice from Hook’s side of the table instead of the pair the guy next to her had been using. 

“What’re you doing, love?” He asks, sitting up a little straighter.

“Well, these just seem so much luckier, don’t they?” She smiles sarcastically at him and holds out the dice resting in her hand, “C’mon, blow on them for me? For luck.” 

And he fucking does it, and as he looks up at her from under his lashes, she’s instantly sent back to the first time they met, when he tied that damn scarf around her hand with his teeth. He’s doing the same thing here, gaze hot and heavy and she can only imagine his face would look similar if he looked up at her from between her legs. 

Emma rolls and of course it comes out a good score. “Well, look at that.” She says, looking at him again. It’s only because she’s so familiar with him that she can see the uncertainty in his eyes, but on the surface it’s full-on Captain Hook, roguish charmer. 

“Leave us.” He tells everyone else at the table. Emma stays, not even breaking eye contact to glance at the annoyed women walking away from his side. 

“Care to join me over here, love?” He asks with a smirk, “It’s oh so hard to hear you all the way over there.”

“Oh well, if you insist.” She rounds the table, running her fingertips along the back of the familiar leather coat as she comes to sit in front of him, making a show of swinging one leg over the bench and lowering herself down. He licks his lips, not even bothering to disguise his want, and immediately scoots closer to her.

“Insist I do,” He taps at her skirt with the hook, “and now I insist on a toast.” He grabs the two nearest tin cups and pours each of them a shot of rum. “To luck.” he winks at her and she can actually let herself smile at his stupid charm for once, toasting him and throwing the drink back. (It’s very different from any rum she’s ever had, without the sweetness it seems much drier and stronger.)

“I have a confession to make.” she starts, leaning in a bit towards him. She could do anything with him, this is pure unadulterated Hook. Maybe he’d be more forthcoming with his answers than her Hook. 

“Most women do.”

“I want to know…” she reaches down, grasping at his brace and pulling it up to run her hand along the curve of his hook, rounding the tip with the backs of her fingers, “How you got the hook. You hear so many stories.” 

He groans, something sexy and deep and guttural, scooting even closer to her so that his knees press against her inner thighs, spreading her legs even more. “So, you know who I am, and yet you haven't even told me your name.” He still smells the same, his rum-laden breath still just as warm against her face, only a few inches away. His eyes are just as dangerously blue and heady as ever, except he doesn’t have that softness that she’s grown to both love and hate in Killian’s gaze. The warmth, their  _ connection _ isn’t really here, but she finds herself still just as attracted to him as ever, maybe even more so with feelings off the table.

“What fun would that be?” She pours them both another shot.

“Just two ships passing in the night then?”

“Passing closely, I hope.” She leans into him and  _ this _ is what she wanted a few nights ago, just him and her, no feelings no Neal no history to bog them down. 

“Speaking of ships, what do you say we leave this place and I’ll show you mine?” 

He starts to stand, but she shoots out and grips his thigh, “wait,” resting her hand there as he sits back down. “How about we have a few drinks first?” 

She keeps her hand there for a while as they drink, if he starts to get antsy, she’ll move her hand up a bit, and after a few shots, she’s thumbing the inner seam of his pants. Close by not close enough. She can feel the heat from the apex of his thighs, and she itches to just move her hand up a couple more inches. He’s staring at her, pupils blown and mouth open as his breathing increases and she can’t help herself, she inches just a little close, leaning into his space a bit more. 

“Don’t start what you aren’t willing to finish, love.” He catches her wrist with his hand, bringing her hand up to his mouth to press a hot kiss to her knuckles. “If you get any closer, I’d be too tempted to have you right here and now, and that’s bad form.” 

She pours them another shot. 

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to get me drunk, which is usually my tactic.” His face is red at this point, and his movements a bit uncoordinated as he reaches out to poke her in the chest, his finger poking into the soft flesh of the scar over her heart, just above her breasts. 

“What’s wrong, Captain? Can’t hold your rum?” It’s too fun, honestly. 

“No,” He leans towards her, but seems to get too close, “Not only can I hold it,” he’s gesturing with his finger between their faces and ends up tapping the tip of her nose, first accidentally and then deliberately. It takes everything she has not to burst out laughing, instead swallowing anything more than a giggle by wetting her lips and grinning. “But I can carry it right out the door. What do you say we set sail? Come back with me for a nightcap, or should I find someone else?” he breathes hot against her mouth and if she weren’t actively trying to keep him in this bar she would be all over it. 

It’s nice to give in to her attraction to him without having to worry about anything. Killian assured her he wouldn’t remember and Killian’s not here to see what she’s doing, he’s not going to be thinking about this, she doesn’t have to worry about what her parents will say or Regina or Henry. It’s just...it’s just her and him and god they’ve both been attracted to each other since day one. 

All reward, no risk.

He’s a cute drunk, nibbling on her ear and nosing against the side of her head as they walk back to the ship. He’s laughing openly, and he either doesn’t hold the weight of his past or he’s much better at ignoring it at this time. He hefts her into his arms to walk her across to the deck, spouting off about the “Rolly Jogger” and he’s  _ cute _ . He’d be much more cute if she weren’t so worried that her  _ mom _ just walked past and  _ where the hell is Killian?? _

Shit shit shit, he’s still below deck. She finds him, but not in enough time because Killian is still behind her when Hook comes down the stairs. She grabs him by the lapels and kisses him, pulling him away from the steps so Killian can get out, but  _ how in the hell is she going to get out of this one?? _ She does not have an exit plan. That’s like, rule number three of committing any crime: always have an exit plan.

God does she miss his mouth though. Hook still tastes like Killian did back in Neverland, and down here in his quarters everything smells like him and god he’s got a talented tongue. Talented enough, that for a few moments she almost forgets that this is just a diversion. He’s in control of it this time with a hand on the back of her neck, and he’s kissing her. His facial hair scrapes against her skin and god it’s really hot and she doesn’t mean to, but her eyes close and she’s lost in it, warmth pooling between her legs as he licks into her mouth. She’s thought about this for so long, even in New York she dreamed about this. 

Then, of course, Killian punches himself in the face and she has to deal with his pouting over the whole thing. 


	26. Killian - The Ball

She’s nothing short of the most beautiful thing in the room. The castle is made from pure gold, expensive chandeliers hang above, jewel-encrusted gowns and jewelry all around and she’s still the most valuable treasure in all the room. He’d forsake it all for her. 

He’d attended a few of these in his days as an officer, typically accompanying at Liams right hand. But he’s attended a few in his day as a pirate as well, dressed to the nines in pilfered clothing, casing the party for treasures. But even then, he knew his etiquette. He knows which arm to offer his lady, the steps through the waltz, which forks are for which course and the good form of taking a dance from a lady.

She’s nervous and stumbles over the hem of her gown. Her hand is tight on his arm, her shoulders and back stiff and tense. But from the moment the Crocodile transports them onto the path up to the castle, her face is full of awe and wonder. She looks up at the palace walls, the jewels and crystals dripping down from the chandelier above, the sweeping ballgowns and tailored coats and doublets of the attendees around them. She keeps muttering to him (What is that? Who is that? What’s that called? What do I do?) and he answers as quietly and carefully as he can, careful not to disturb this moment for her. It’s not altruistic, it’s truly selfish that he just longs to keep this beautiful, wonderful expression on her face for as long as he can. 

He spins her out for a dance, and her hand fits on his shoulder like the fates designed him specifically for her to hold, his hand perfect on her waist like he was meant for her. Her steps follow his perfectly, he holds her close and she can’t seem to stop smiling and he would go the the ends of the earth to keep that look on her face. Rarely has he seen her happy, and it fills him with pride and affection that he’s able to be a part of keeping that happiness in her expression. 

He loves her. He loves her so damn much, and maybe, had the fates been kinder, this could have been their life. If he was just a naval officer in her court, and she were the princess, maybe this could have been how they met. Him lucky enough to be gifted with a dance from her at her ball, both happy and smiling without all of the death and tragedy they both carry with them. 

“There’s Charming.” She says quietly to him, and he peeks at the man over his shoulder. Yes, this is always what he pictured of the prince. “He looks handsome.” She says wistfully.

“He looks every bit the poncy Prince I always knew he was.” Killian grins when she slaps his arm. 

“I don’t know what that means, but be nice.” She’s chastising him but even she cannot keep the smile off of her face. “Besides, if David looks -- Poncy or whatever, then so do you.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, Swan?” He spins her out and then back in, saying the next words close to her ear as her back presses against her front, “I prefer Devilishly Handsome.”

“The devilish part may be a stretch in these clothes,” She replies with a roll of her eyes. 

“Ah, so you admit, you think I look handsome?” She twists back out, returning her hands back to the waltz position as he leads her back into the steps.

“Well, you do clean up nicely.” She smooths out the fabric of his coat, and smiles at him. (And maybe his heart skips a beat or two.)

“Only the best for my Princess at her first royal ball.” The flush in her cheeks along with her smile make all of this worth it. 

He’s not going to be able to get Emma out of the castle on his own. He needs an ally, someone just as motivated as he to get her back. He needs David. 

He tails the Prince. If he knows anything about that man it’s that he’s a stubborn ass and he’s going to go after Snow himself as soon as he can. Killian doesn’t sleep, he makes camp out by the entrance to the castle and waits. Sure enough, come dawn, David is on the move and Killian trails him. 

He’s not sure what is worse, listening to the two of them needlessly flirt with one another like school children, or the couple he’s used to, happy and nauseatingly in love. There’s far less sexual tension in the future, that’s for damn sure. 

“What is wrong with you?!” Snow shouts when David cuts her down. 

“Oi, no need to harm the lass.” Killian smacks David in the chest before going over to snow to help untangle her from the mess of rope she’s in, wishing he had his hook to help.

“Oh she’ll be fine. She scaled the wall of my castle last night, I’m sure she’s had worse falls.” David rolls his eyes but comes over to help nonetheless. Snow smacks the man’s hand away when he offers it, not even accepting Killian’s hand to help her to her feet. 

He’s about ten minutes into the ride to the Queen’s castle when he decides listening to them flirt is ultimately worse than anything he’s suffered through from the married couple. 

The prince and he talk well past the sun setting on the land. He likes David. Far be it for him to admit it, but when he’s not being pompous and self-righteous, the man is almost enjoyable. Killian could see them being friends...in a world where he wasn’t well aware Killian wanted to bed his daughter. (Not just bed her, but that’s the sticking point for Emma’s father and he can’t begrudge him that.)

He hasn’t just sat and talked with anyone like this other than Emma for as long as he can remember. The longer he listens to David speak, the more he’s reminded of Liam. Every time he thinks of his brother, he hopes it hurts a little less, but the pain still lingers there. 

“I don’t know. This whole ordeal makes me wonder if there’s even such a thing as true love.” 

“I once felt as you did, mate, and all it took was meeting the right person and everything changed.”

“Princess Leia? The one we’re rescuing?”

“Aye. I’d go to the end of the world for her...or time.” Killian says and there’s not an ounce of hesitation in him as the words slip out. He truly loves her, wholly, incredibly so. Even if she does go to New York when all of this is over, that love won’t change or diminish. It’ll just hurt a hell of a lot more. 

“And she for you, I take it?” David asks with a smile in his voice. 

“I don’t know.” Killian chuckles. He didn’t intend for this heart-to-heart but It’s nice to be able to talk about this with someone, he doesn’t have many friends left in the world, and bless Tink, but at times Killian prefers someone of the same sex to talk to other than Smee.

“What’s the problem?”

“There are many complications.” Killian tries to dismiss the Prince’s train of thought, but he’s latched onto the idea and won’t let it go now. 

“Family? Because my father is making things quite difficult for me.” 

“Aye. There’s that. I’m not so sure her parents approve of me.” Killian can’t help himself, the opportunity is too rich to pass up. 

“Given the length you’ve gone to save her, they’d be crazy not to.” David says it with such surety in his tone. It’s a bit of a comfort, to know he has David’s approval when the man doesn't realize it’s his daughter he’s speaking of. Not that he needs it, but he likes when her family treats him as a friend and not a dirty pirate.

“Hope you remember that.”

Things happen so fast. Emma follows him to the window and all he can do is wrap his arms around her as she collapses in on herself. She falls against his chest, a hand over her mouth to muffle tears as the Prince and the Wolf shout in protest. They watch...god they watch Snow burn but there’s no time. 

“We must go.” Killian says, catching the eye of the other woman with them. She nods and puts her hands on Red’s shoulders to try and guide her down the hall. 

Killian tugs at Emma, and she protests, hand fisting in the fabric over his arm. He meets David’s gaze over Emma’s shoulder and the Prince, despite the stricken look and wet eyes, turns to help usher Red away. Killian leans down to press his mouth close to Emma’s ear, pulling her hair back from her face with his spare hand. 

“Come on, Emma. We have to go, love, it’s not safe.” She shakes her head in protest, but the others are already moving down the hall, so instead of waiting for her, he wraps his arms around her waist and bodily drags her from the window. She shouts in protest and kicks out against him for the half the length of the hall before sagging over his arm with her crying. 

He sets her down, turning her towards him and angling her chin up to look at him. “Don’t make me carry you out of here, Emma.” He says gently to her, ignoring David’s protests at how long they’re taking. She shoves him away and walks off after David. 

_ “He doesn’t want to find out what she looks like when she cries.” _ he had thought to himself back in Neverland. And he’s been so close so many times, he’s seen red eyes, swollen cheeks and tear tracks, but she’s never actually cried like that in front of him. He’s never heard those wounded sounds ripped straight from her soul before and he was right. He always thought her tears would break them and they did. As if he wasn’t lovestruck enough before. 

Snow lives, but she rejects Emma’s hug. Emma, who can’t bring herself to touch him half the time, let alone seek comfort when she’s upset, was rejected by her mother. He wipes her tears, and comforts her best he can, but something in Emma’s eyes seems broken beyond his repair. 

That night, when he tries to lay her to rest next to the campfire, she reaches out to him. Just like coming to his room, just like finding him downstairs in the diner, just like at the bar she reaches out to him for comfort. Just like all of those times, he will be whatever she needs, do whatever it takes to ease the pain in her eyes. He lays next to her, a respectful few inches away between her and whatever dwells out in the forest. He desperately wants to hold her, but eventually, she rolls towards him and gently holds his arm and presses her forehead to his shoulder. If this is as much comfort as she can take he will gladly provide it.


	27. Emma - The Ball

Emma Swan never got prom or school dances. She never got expensive one-use dresses and a boy stuttering and asking her to go with him. She never got to slow dance with someone, to blush and have her first kiss under a dimmed middle-school gym lights while Lighthouse played in the background. No, Emma got a ten year old bottle of tequila and a handful of foster kids in a basement with wet sloppy kisses all fumbling for second base. 

But this? All of this, it’s so...otherworldly. If this is what her mother waxes poetic about missing then maybe she can understand. Everyone around her is like..a ren fair come to life, in jewel encrusted gowns, sweeping trains, and fur-lined capes. She’s in a fucking palace made of pure gold for god’s sake.

She is by far, not one for ballgowns and heels. She made herself stop liking dresses and the color pink the moment she realized it was just one more thing for other people to make fun of her for, so she forced herself to hate dresses, to pick jeans and flannels and t-shirts instead because  _ girly-girls _ were dumb and she refused to be like that. 

But...but she feels good. She saw herself in Rumple’s mirror, she can see the gown on her body, and it’s heavy as hell and probably costs more than her rent in New York and is somehow  _ more _ uncomfortable than what she was in earlier but...but she feels pretty. She’s got a fucking tiara on, and she’s in an honest to god ballgown with a system of petticoats and skirts underneath that she couldn’t possibly understand. 

He looks handsome, done up like this, looks good in something other than black and with the white collar and brown coat he looks like he belongs here. And he knows what he’s doing, he’s been to one of these before. 

“Are you saying you know how to do...whatever this is?” He spins her out onto the dance floor and adjusts her arms to rest on his prosthetic hand and shoulder, and his comes to rest at her waist (and she curses the fabric since that she can’t feel the warmth of it.)

“It’s called a waltz.” He pulls her close with the arm on her waist, but not indecently so, “and there’s only one rule -- pick a partner who knows what he’s doing.” His smile is warm and sweet and the complete opposite of the lecherous grin of Hook back in the tavern.

Leading her through the steps, he grins and it’s not dirty or mocking but he’s enjoying himself and she is too. He looks at her like she hung the moon and she’s always hated it when anyone said she was a princess but she looks like it. Killian is looking at her with those warm soft eyes of his and she’s got honest-to-god butterflies in her stomach and maybe she feels like a princess. 

She’s dragged away by the Black Knights ( _ “they’re ruthless, not to be trifled with,” _ Killian had told her) and thrown into the back of a carriage with her hands bound. She looks for Killian over her shoulder, but she isn’t able to find him. If he didn’t see her get caught, he’ll find out once he gets back downstairs surely...right?

The rope tied around her wrists is coarse and tight, and as soon as they lock her in the back, she takes the opportunity to tuck the ring into her shirt and under her breasts so hopefully they don’t find it. She hopes they don’t search that thoroughly. 

It’s well over an hour later when they arrive at their destination and pull her from the back of the cart roughly. “Watch it,” she spits at one of the guards who tugs her too roughly, causing her to topple over as she’s getting out. 

“Shut up,” he hisses back, fisting the back of her hair and pulling her up to her feet again. 

They drag her up flights and flights of fucking stairs until she’s thrown on her knees in front of Regina.

“You’re no princess.” Regina sneers down her nose at her, “I know a dirty street rat when I see one. And I know not to trust such creatures.”

They haul her down to the dungeons, and the farther down they get the more she actually begins to fear what is happening to her. The fairytale is turning dark and she wants to turn it off, but she’s taken into a holding room and shoved roughly to the side as two guards stand at the doorway with their arms crossed. 

The one who gripped her by her hair outside steps forward. “Take off that dress, you won’t be needing it in there.”

“What?” She looks to the other guard, but his face is impassive, “Do you expect me to go in there naked?”

“I don’t really care what you do, Queen’s orders. But if you don’t want to take it off yourself, I would be more than glad to assist you.” The guard steps closer to her and she flinches back, putting her hands up.

“Do not fucking touch me.” She hisses at him with a glare of her own. With a sneer, the asshole backs up to his post at the doorway, still watching her. Emma turns her back away from him, and tries to reach behind her for a zipper, but only feels a system of small buttons up her back. Fuck. She reaches behind her to try and unfasten them and the arduous task isn’t helped by her shaking hands. 

She tries not to think about prison intake, about having to strip naked and shower in front of the guards, but it’s too similar and her eyes begin to burn with unshed tears when--

“What’s going on here?” She hears the voice and her entire body seizes up. No. No no no. 

“The Queen ordered her to the dungeons, she was caught helping Snow White.” The nicer of the two guards says.

“And why are you two standing here watching her?” He asks. She refuses to cry but every word out of his mouth feels like a stab to her gut. “Get out of here, I’ll handle this.” The asshole tries to refute but he’s shot down and she hears two sets of footsteps walk down the corridor. She’s frozen to her spot, listening to him move around the room.

“Milady?” She jumps, full-bodied when he walks up behind her, resting a hand on her shoulder. He walks into her line of sight and she’s forced to look at him, the brown curls on his forehead, kind blue eyes, the scruff of facial hair. God. Tears do fall then and she tries to furiously wipe them away before he can comment. 

“Are you alright? Did he do something to you?” he asks, leaning down a bit to catch her gaze. Her throat feels swollen shut with emotion, but she shakes her head. 

“No. I’m fine.” She tries to reassure him (and she thinks back to Killian’s similar concerned gaze earlier.) “He was just an ass.” He chuckles at that (she forgot his laugh, not that she heard it much. Did she forget what he looked like too?)

“I apologize, I do need to get you out of this dress, would you like some help?” His face is emapthetic and he knows how fucking weird this is but he’s being so nice about it and she frogot what he sounded like. 

She doesn’t trust her voice, so she just nods and turns so he can unfasten the buttons on her gown for her. She didn’t expect this. Why didn’t she expect this? God he’s alive and she should warn him but...but she can’t. Regina must already have his heart anyway. 

_ “No, Swan. When Belle figured out Zelena wanted to change the past she warned us it was dangerous. Messing with events could do untold damage to all of us.” _ Killian’s voice reminds her in her head.

“There, Milady, you should be able to attend to yourself now.” He steps to the other side of the room (she can’t stop staring at him), and returns to set a bundle on the bench next to her. “I’ll give you some privacy, go ahead and get changed, I’ll be right outside that door, alright?” 

The dress slides off easily with the buttons undone, But she has multiple skirts underneath that she has to find the fastenings for, and she practically falls over, half naked while trying to step out of them. After changing into the ratty muslin gown Graham had given her, she just tucks the ring into her fist and hopes they don’t take it. 

“I’m done.” she shouts after him, kicking her dress and skirts off into the corner. Graham comes around the corner (her heart skips a beat seeing him again) with a blue piece of fabric over his arm and a strip of the same muslin fabric. He hands her the strip of fabric and then throws the fabric over her shoulder. “What’re you doing?”

“It’s just a cloak. It gets cold down here at night, I thought this may help you keep warm.” He gives her a smile, fastening the cloak together at her neck. “I must remove your jewelry as well, milady, do you mind?” He makes quick work of it, but he unfastens the necklace and then takes the jeweled headpiece out of her hair, messing up the style as he does so. “Damn. Sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Emma tries to smile, reaching back to remove the rest of the pins previously holding the style in place.

“Your rings?” He offers his hand out, but Emma clutches at the two rings in her possession. Graham’s look turns even more sympathetic, but she curls them protectively to her chest. 

“Please, they’re my parents’ wedding rings, it’s all I have left of them.” It’s not entirely untrue. Graham looks around himself at that and then speaks quietly to her. 

“Well, you best hide them before the guards.” He gives her a pointed look and all she can do is not. “You can use that fabric to tie your hair back, if you wish. But I must take you to your cell now.” He turns away from her and without thinking past her pounding heartbeat Emma reaches out and grabs his arm. 

“Thank you,” She says, looking him in the eyes. Thinking of all of the things she wanted to tell him before he died, everything she wished she had said before he collapsed in her arms.  _ Thank you for pushing me, thank you for being there, thank you for making me open myself up again. _ “For your kindness, just...for everything.” 

“You’re welcome.” He smiles warmly at her before ushering her forward into the arms of the two guards from earlier. She watches him over her shoulder for as long ass he can until she’s pulled around the corner by the guards.

The day that passes is agonizing in its boredom. 

Her attempt at sleep is fitful and frustrating. First, she dreams of Graham and wakes up nauseous and crying again. Then she dreams of her parents, of her little baby brother she’ll never know the name of and everything that seemed like the end of the world a few days ago seems so far away now. She misses them, she wants to go back and let her dad run his hand through her hair, let her mother tend to her. She wants to hold Henry, she wants  _ Hook, _ she wants to go home. 

It feels so much like that first night in prison did, dark, damp, alone and scared. She missed Neal then too, but it’s different. Neal put her there, she’s the one that got herself locked up in this cell, Killian had nothing to do with that. 

She doesn’t see Graham again, although that’s probably for the best because she's weary and tired and if she sees him she’s likely to burst into tears again. She doesn’t even have his bootlaces with her, she doesn’t have her circlet necklace, any of it. All of her safety nets are gone and she’s stuck here and she’s going to die. 

No. Killian won’t let her die...he’ll come for her...right?

She runs that ring between her fingers, tracing the worn gold, the emerald in the setting of the head. She thinks of Mary Margaret and her idly fiddling with this ring, how her mother would sit and run her thumb along the band last time they were stranded in the Enchanted Forest, when she first met Killian.

“If my mom was here she would tell me to have hope.” She tells the woman in the cell next to her. 

( _ “How can you two be so infuriatingly optimistic!?” She had yelled at her parents on the deck of the Jolly Roger. _

_ “It's who we are.” her dad told her. _

_ “Why? Ever since you got your memories back, ever since you remembered that you're Snow White and Prince Charming, your lives have... they've... we'll, they've sucked!”  _

_ “No. No, we found you.” _

_ “And lost Henry! And Neal, and countless other people!” She spit back, but it was the kind, determined words of her mother that gave her pause.  _

_ “Emma, the minute I let go of the belief that things will get better is the minute that I know they won't. We'll find him.” her mother’s tone left no room for argument, there was no other option.) _

Her mother would tell her to have hope. Henry would tell her to believe in hope. She could do that for them, she could try. 

He does come for her, and even though she didn’t need it, even though she was getting herself out of there just  _ fine thank you _ . He came back for her. Just like he came back for her in New York, just like he came after her through the portal. It means everything.

Emma is learning to hate that numb feeling that comes with crying. She’s felt it too much in the past few years. She practically collapses against Killian and he half drags her down the hall to force her out of the castle before she’s shoving him away. Ruby runs off immediately, leaving David to grab her cloak and lead the way out of the castle. 

She should cry more, she should be a sobbing mess but...but that numbness is back. She’s stumbling, and she’s exhausted and tired. She hasn’t slept in days, she’s stranded in the fucking past where Graham is alive and she just watched her  _ mother die _ . All she can do is stumble along after them. By time they get back to Killian and David’s campsite, Killian’s supporting the bulk of her weight with his arm around her waist. 

She loses time, only remembering herself when they’re by the fire and Killian is kneeling in front of her, reaching up to brush her hair away from her face. 

“Love, can you hear me?” He asks gently, stroking her cheek with his thumb. She nods, but every inch of her body is suddenly exhausted. It’s too much. The next thing she knows, he’s pressing a damp rag to her face, gentle along her cheeks and under her eyes. “Here, Emma. Blow your nose.” 

_ Why are you being so nice to me?  _ she wants to ask, remembering every awful thing she’s spat at him.  _ Why do you care? Why are you still here? _ But he is here. He’s always here, even when she’s mean, even when she pushes him away, even when he’s being  _ blackmailed _ he’s still here. He hasn’t left her. 

“Thank you.” Is what she says instead once she’s cleaned her face and woken up a bit. He just rubs her back and sits next to her at the fire. He’s just there for her, like he always is.

After they get Snow back, and her mother looks at her with nothing behind her eyes, the last bit of strength Emma has is drained from her. It’s the last part of her that is still in place that crumbles, a fissure forms in her heart and the pain is aching and deep and indescribable. 

“Looks like we’re back on track, love.” Killian comes over and brushers her tears away. She tries to smile for him, but they both know...they both know. Killian steps away from her for a few minutes to talk to David and returns with a rough blanket that he spreads out next to the fire.

“We’re going to camp for the night, you should get some rest.” He holds his hand out for her. She doesn’t remember taking it, but he helps her down to the ground, and drapes her cloak across her shoulders. He moves her hair off of her face and moves to walk away from her but her heart seizes in her chest and she grabs him by the wrist before he can get up.

“Emma?” He questions, but she just shakes her head and tightens her grip on his wrist. She can’t ask for it, she can’t but she needs him.  _ Please don’t make me ask for it.  _ He’s all she has. 

He doesn’t make her ask, and he doesn’t ask for clarification either. Killian takes off his coat and lays down next to her between her and the line of trees, and Emma rolls onto her back to watch him. He drapes the coat over his chest like a blanket and throws his far arm behind his head to act as a cushion. 

“Sleep now, Swan.” He tells her, closing his eyes and lying back.

Emma tries. She does, but she’s restless. At some point, she rolls onto her side to face him. She thinks of the last time she saw him sleeping. When he first came to Storybrooke in the hospital, when his ribs were broken and she had to hide him in a back room from Gold. She remembers how stupid he was, and how annoyed she was that she thought he was pretty in his sleep. 

Has she ever noticed that little scar next to his nose? Has she ever been close enough to see there’s some blue in that black earring of his. He is pretty in his sleep, even now in the dark of the forest with the campfire casting moving columns of light across his face. His eyelashes are long and dark, brushing against the dark circles beneath his eyes. He probably didn’t sleep last night either. 

What if she just let him hold her? Would it really be so bad to have his arms around her? 

She’s just so tired. She...she wants her parents. She wants to look at David and see that  _ love _ in his eyes, she wants him to hold her with his hand on the back of her head like he always does. She wants her mother to wipe her tears and hold her and tell her she loves her. She can’t look at them anymore and see that emptiness behind their eyes. She wants to hold Henry and kiss his head and apologize for yelling and keeping secrets and trying to leave. God she just  _ misses _ them.

_ (“That’s how you know you’ve really got a home: When you leave it, there’s that feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it.”) _

This is what she’d be missing if she leaves. This is what she’s giving up, she would spend every day missing them like this, like there’s a part of her that is gone. It’s exactly what she felt the first time they lived in New York, Regina’s spell made things seem perfect but there was always something off. She searched for her mother in clocks, sought her dad out with games and movies of knights and princes, seeing dogs on the street. She sought Killian out with leather dresses and rum hidden in her liquor cabinet. She missed them and she was too stubborn to accept it until she was stranded here, without them again. 

_ (“Go find Tallahassee. Even if it's without me.”) _

But Killian’s here. He’s always here for her, even when she doesn’t deserve it. She could reach out, she could hold him, let him hold her but...It’s too much, not now, she can’t. But she reaches out anyway to wrap her hand around his upper arm. She can’t lay her head on his chest, can’t ask for his arms around her, it’s too much and she’s too fragile. But she wraps her fingers around his upper arm and rests her forehead against his shoulder and tries to sleep with the comfort of his presence. He’s here. She doesn’t have to miss him yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. So so first of all, there's no good explanation for her costume change, then I needed to have a really nice guard to help her with said costume change. Then I realized the timeline worked and It just made perfect sense to have him there.


	28. Killian - Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like some mood music, I listened to Make You Feel My Love on repeat writing these last two chapters, which has so many great versions, but I listened to the Glee cover and the Adele versions.

“I wanted to thank you, Killian.” She tells him, making his heart stutter in his chest. She’s only called him by his given name a handful of times before, and every time it was for the benefit of Henry’s memories, or because there was some crisis at hand and it slipped out, or soured in some way. But this? There’s nobody around to hear her say it, she’s not putting on a show for the boy, there’s no crisis hanging over their shoulders any more. It’s just him and her and his name on her tongue makes his stomach flutter like a blushing bride. 

“For coming back for me in the first place in New York. If you hadn’t--”

“It was the right thing to do.” he interrupts her. If she’s out here to reject him he truly can’t bear to hear it.

“How did you do it?” She asks, “How did you get to me?”

He should answer her. He knows. If...if this is his last chance to prove to her that he cares he should take it but...but he didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to tell her this, she didn't need to know. She doesn’t need to know about the ink on his arm and the pain in his heart because he did not do it expecting anything in return. He did it because it was the right thing to do. But also because if he hadn’t he never could have forgiven himself. Maybe that’s selfish, but he loves her.

“When the curse was coming I ditched my crew and took the Jolly Roger as fast and as far as I possibly could to outrun it.” 

“You outran a curse?” she asks incredulously.

“I’m a hell of a captain.” he smiles at her, earning a small chuckle. 

“Once I was outside the curses purview I knew that the walls were down. Transport between the realms was possible again. All I needed was a magic bean.”

“Those are not easy to come by.” 

“They are if you’ve got something of value to trade.” he looks away from her, nerves already eating at his stomach. 

“And what was that?” she laughs, like this is some tale he’s spinning. He should let her keep thinking that, come up with something wild and outlandish. He doesn't’ want to tell her. 

But this is it. He’ll put his last card on the table, no bluffing, no cheating. This is all he has, all he is. And if that’s not enough then…

“Why the Jolly Roger, of course.” The words come out on a nervous chuckle and he looks at her, searching for anything he can find in her expression. Her face falls from that sweet sarcastic smile into...disbelief. 

“You traded your ship for me?” She asks, pinched brow and all. 

“Aye.”

He offers her one last challenge.

This is all he has. He’s so fucking in love, so smitten with her. He’s laying himself prone before her, offering himself up for judgement to the only person in recent memory that has looked at him as more than a _pirate_. To the woman he loves, the woman who has scars and walls to match his own, who understands what it means to truly lose someone, and then lose a part of yourself. 

He just loves her. He loves her walls and her vulnerabilities. He loves how fierce a mother she is, that she would go to hell and back for her boy. He loves that she protects her parents, and protects everyone in this god-forsaken town even though she doesn’t know half of them. He’s loved nothing more than being able to peel back those walls of hers just a bit to see the wounded woman inside, and knows he would do anything for her. Go to any lengths to save her from pain and suffering.

He’s no prince. He doesn’t have a castle or a kingdom, he doesn’t even have his ship. He can’t...he can’t promise her he’ll be perfect or that he’ll always know the right choice to make. He’s just a flawed man trying his best. 

He has no home to offer her but he hopes she could be his new home. All he has is his love.

Emma Swan has never been a woman of words. She’s all action. Words make her nervous, they’re a vulnerability. So she leans forward and presses her lips to his, gentle in every way their other kiss was not. It’s saccharine and tender, and he _knows_ just from that how she feels. He doesn’t need a sweeping declaration, knows he’s likely not to get one. But she scrapes the back of his neck and kisses him like he means something, like he’s worth more than the pathetic man he is. 

His chest hurts, it’s so full of emotion, his throat feels swollen, and he touches her so gently, fearful if he so much as touches her wrong she’ll pull away from him. 

He stops her, thumb pressed into the divet of her chin, golden hair in his fingers and he has to look at her, to know this means something more to her. She opens her eyes to him and smiles so bright and open and warm that it threatens to shake the very pillar of his being. She’s _happy_. This is it, her moment to run. He’s giving her an out, to walk away from him but...but she just closes her eyes. Her forehead pressed against his, her nose soft against the bridge of his own as she waits for him, lashes a dark fan against flushed cheeks. 

( _“That’s how it happened the first time. It took my parents a while to accept their feelings.”_ )

Maybe she doesn’t quite love him yet, gods know she’s nowhere near saying it out loud, but she cares. He knows she does. So he can wait. He spent a century waiting to avenge his first love, he can spend at least that long on his new love.

(“ _...this thing we have, it’s never been easy….But now I realize - I realize that I have not spent my life losing you. I’ve spent my life finding you….But the monster is gone, and the man beneath him may be flawed, but we all are. And I love you for it. Sometimes the best book has the dustiest jacket. And sometimes the best teacup is chipped._ ”)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the end for Killian, my sweet boy. I really love him and how he's just...once he sets his mind to something he just commits whole heartedly, even if it hurts. He's so kind and gentle and someone so dedicated to what they love is exactly what Emma needed.


	29. Emma - Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Again, Mood Music would be Make You Feel My Love (Adele or Glee Cover).

Emma feels good when she seeks him out. She got her magic back, she’s got Henry and her parents and her brother. She’s  _ in the book _ now, she’s a part of their world. But something is missing, and she finds that something sulking outside with his flask. 

“You’re a bloody hero, Swan.” He says, back in his leathers, back here in Storybrooke, with his soft eyes instead of Hook’s smoldering blue from the bar.

“So are you.” She says. “I wanted to thank you, Killian.” And then something passes between them. There’s so much they don’t talk about, so much they don’t address because she can’t handle it. This is a line in the sand she’s been too terrified to even think of crossing but...but it’s now or never. There’s no more excuses, no more running. She wants to know him. 

( _ “There's more to life than living for the next fight. You know, you gotta look for the moments.” _

_ “Moments?” _

_ “Yes, life is made up of moments. Good ones, bad ones, but they're all worth living.” _

_ “Well, I seem to be a magnet for the bad ones.”  _

_ “Well, all the more reason to look for the good moments in between the bad ones.” _ )

“For coming back for me in the first place in New York. If you hadn’t--”

“It was the right thing to do.” he interrupts her.

( _ “Well, it seemed like the honorable thing to do.” “It was the honorable thing to do.” her parents said to each other back in the forest. _ )

“How did you do it?” She asks, pressing when he averts his gaze, “How did you get to me?” It’s one of the questions she’s been dying to know for weeks. If this is a moment for her, it’s one for him too. She’s thinking about crossing that line but...but she needs to know he is too, no more secrets, no more lies.

“When the curse was coming I ditched my crew and took the Jolly Roger as fast and as far as I possibly could to outrun it.” He’s looking at her, but not dead on. He’s nervous, but for him, lies are direct not misdirected. It’s the truth that makes him nervous. 

“You outran a curse?” Maybe this is just one of the tales he’s spun, one of the random stories he’s made up for Henry over the last few weeks.

“I’m a hell of a captain.” He’s smirking at her and she chuckles along, unsure where this is going. “Once I was outside the curses purview I knew that the walls were down. Transport between the realms was possible again. All I needed was a magic bean.”

“Those are not easy to come by.” 

“They are if you’ve got something of value to trade.” he looks away from her, picking at the seam line of his pants as a distraction. 

“And what was that?”

“Why, the  _ Jolly Roger _ , of course.” 

Everything from her lungs to her heart to her brain stutters in her body because “you traded your ship for me?” no he must be lying, she waits for the telltale pinprick on the back of her neck, the unease in her stomach but...

“Aye.”

Oh.

_ Oh _ .

But...but people don’t do things like that for her. That’s a gesture from some grand romantic movie, unrealistic. Her parents make sacrifices for her because she’s their daughter, Henry brings her home cards on mother’s day because he’s her son and he’s supposed to, Regina helps them because Henry is her son too. She’s something to all of them, daughter, mother, co-parent, whatever you want to call it but...why would Killian make that sacrifice for her?

He’s just Killian and she’s just Emma and...and he likes Emma. Nobody likes just Emma. They like the savior, they like the daughter, the mother but...but Killian traded his  _ home _ for her. He gave up his home to bring her back to her own. 

(“ _ Henry wasn’t bringing me back to break a curse. He was bringing me home.” _ )

If he wanted to trick her, he could have told her this a dozen times over the past few weeks, he would have led with it in New York. This isn’t “ _ Is that all your father's life is worth to you?” _ this isn’t some ploy to get in her pants. This isn’t a trick. 

( _ “So when I win your heart, Emma, and I will win it, it will not be because of any trickery. It will be because you want me.” _ )

It’s not a trick, because she’s spent weeks pulling this answer out of him. If he wanted to use this as leverage, he would have brought it up one of the dozens of times he tried to convince her to stay here in Storybrooke. It’s not a trick, and it means  _ everything. _

This means more than his pretty words, more than a heated kiss, more than a connected past. This is him babysitting Henry and him telling her son good things and stories of his father, him being something to her son that she can’t for absolutely no reward. This is him coming back for her in New York, him watching over Belle and helping Ariel. It’s no manipulation.

It’s every time he wanted her to be the best version of herself, every time he wanted her to accept her magic, or stop running. 

(“ _ Magic is a part of you, Swan. Don't forget... I was there when Cora tried to steal your heart. I saw the power inside of you. It's about time you embraced it. It's what makes you the Saviour.”) _

It’s his belief in her.

( _ “I have yet to see you fail.” _ )

It’s him fighting for her, even when she pushed him down.

( _ “If it’s broken. It means it still works. _ ”)

It’s just being there for her.

(“ _ There's not a day will go by I won't think of you.” _ )

It’s being what she needs.

(“ _ As you wish. _ ”)

It’s  _ love _ .

(“ _ My secret is, I never thought I'd be capable of letting go of my first love... of my Milah... to believe that I could find someone else that is, until I met you. _ ”)

It’s like the world tilts on its axis and everything shifts into place. 

He traded his  _ home _ for her. He crossed that line in the sand long before she even considered it.

She...what do you even say to that? What are words in the wake of this revelation?

She leans forward to kiss him and  _ this _ feels right. It’s not hot and heated like in Neverland or with Hook in the tavern. It’s warm and gentle, and makes those damn butterflies in her stomach come to life and her chest tight. It’s so much better.

She twines her fingers in the hair at the back of his neck, and his own hand, large and warm, rests gently on the side of her neck, cupping the base of her head. He loves her, he  _ loves _ her, and she cares for him so much her chest could burst open. And he’s not just saying it like Walsh, he’s not...he’s not going to run like Neal. He’s proven it to her time and time again and said  _ nothing. _ He didn’t ask for reward, he didn’t do it to get in her good graces.

He pulls back from her at one point, and the expression on his face is almost like disbelief. His thumb rubs her chin, his fingers tangled in her hair at her jaw, touching her reverently before sweeping in again. 

He did it because he  _ loved her _ . 

And maybe that was worth taking a chance on. 

(“ _ When we met I wasn’t just unloved and unloving. I was an enemy of love. Love had only brought me pain. My walls were up. But you broke them down. You brought me home. You brought light into my life and chased away all the darkness. And I vow to you I will never forget the distance between what I was...and what I am. I owe more to you than I can ever say. How you can see the man behind the monster, I will never know.”) _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the end for both of them. Emma is so tough and holds people at arms distance but it's just because she loves too much and too fiercely. I know people watching the show find her...prickly lol but she's just been so hurt. 
> 
> I really wanted them to have the conversation where they discussed what happened between Hook/Milah/Rumble/Bae, and then what happened between Emma/Neal but they never had time for it, and honestly I don't know if they earned it at this point. I'm disappointed it didn't come up, but it's almost sweeter that they didn't discuss it. They feel that connection of having similar trauma, and sitting down and talking about it isn't very _them_ lol. 
> 
> There's so much growing left for them after this point, but the show did most of that for me so no need to rehash. They actually talk about their feelings in season 4 lmao.
> 
> I dont know if I mentioned it, but the fic is titled after Finding You by Kesha, which I think is a really beautiful song for Captain Swan.
> 
> I want to thank any and everyone that read the fic, but especially anyone that commented on it. It's truly the best motivation and I've been a little disheartened publishing this, but the sweet comments really made it for me. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. 
> 
> I hope any and all of you enjoyed it. <3 
> 
> Stay Safe
> 
> \--
> 
> _I know forever don't exist  
> _  
>  _But after this life, I'll find you in the next  
> _  
>  _So when I say "forever, " it's the goddamn truth  
> _  
>  _I'll keep finding, finding you  
> _  
>  _I'm gonna search for your love  
> _  
>  _Right through Hell and Heaven  
> _  
>  _Millions of years yet to come  
> _  
>  _And in all dimensions  
> _  
>  _I know that you'll always be  
> _  
>  _My happy ending  
> _  
>  _My happy ending_  
>  Finding You - Kesha


End file.
